After Kleiner Trial, Expect Less Shooting from the Hip in Silicon Valley(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
After Kleiner Trial, Expect Less Shooting from the Hip in Silicon Valley
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/technology/after-kleiner-trial-expect-less-shooting-from-the-hip-in-silicon-valley.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
3 comments
Venture capital is fundamentally a formal structure wrapped around a few people deciding where to put a big pile of money they control. They tend to be small, top heavy, organizations where the people at the top have a lot of autonomy. That isn't going to change.
If, on the other hand, this makes those firms think a little harder about how they might be making sexist decisions, I can't see it as a bad thing. There's no doubt that women are underrepresented in VC, and I can't help but suspect that that is one reason they are underrepresented in Tech.
If, on the other hand, this makes those firms think a little harder about how they might be making sexist decisions, I can't see it as a bad thing. There's no doubt that women are underrepresented in VC, and I can't help but suspect that that is one reason they are underrepresented in Tech.
Hiring of women in VC will not increase.
Just the opposite.
The jury deliberated for 20 hours after a month long trial. They found nothing to back the claim. And KPCB got dragged through the mud.
There is no gender quota in law. Thus, if it's my fund, I'm not hiring any member of a 'protected class.'
It's not worth the risk -- if you get a really, really unreasonable person like Pao, you're spending million$ and your 43 years of good reputation for, what -- THREE YEARS of doubts in the mind of KPCB limited partners? She filed the lawsuit in 2012. Three years of bad publicity, three years of KPCB clients being wary about investing.
"If I invest a portion of the college endowment fund/pension fund/etc. I am managing into a KPCB round -- and they lose their discrimination lawsuit -- will that hurt my career -- because I invested assets into a predatory firm, and knew about it since 2012?"
There's no WAY I'm risking hiring a person in a 'protected class' -- if they perform poorly and fail to take personal responsibility and 'play the race/gender/sexual harassment/etc. card' and sue -- my firm is being marginalized for three years ?! NOT WORTH IT.
Guess what the only category of person is not a protected class? CAUCASIAN MALES.
Here are 'protected class' types:
- ethnic minority (black, hispanic, asian, etc.) - PROTECTED CLASS ("didn't promote me because they're white and I'm not")
- female of any race: PROTECTED CLASS ("didn't promote me/sexually harassed me/discriminated against me because I'm a girl")
It's in a VC firm's best interest then to HIRE ONLY CAUCASIAN MALES after this farce that put a cloud over KPCB for three years.
There is no enforceable quota, no law, that requires any protected class be hired into a VC fund.
If I'm running a VC fund, I'm hiring caucasian males.
It's not worth the risk KPCB took -- they are the leading VC firm in hiring a broad spectrum of folks, including women, and look what happened to them. BURNED.
I'm also having HR hire resources to check whether the hiree has:
- money problems
- a history of suing others
- a spouse with money problems
- a spouse with a history of suing people
It's my firm and I'm not going out of my way if the 'protected class' can burn me for three years in the media while waiting for a B.S. trial. Three years of bad press; a month-long trial; then it only took TWO DAYS to find out it was a completely frivolous case.
Wow.
If EP really wanted to get more women hired in VC, this was not the way.
Just the opposite.
Just the opposite.
The jury deliberated for 20 hours after a month long trial. They found nothing to back the claim. And KPCB got dragged through the mud.
There is no gender quota in law. Thus, if it's my fund, I'm not hiring any member of a 'protected class.'
It's not worth the risk -- if you get a really, really unreasonable person like Pao, you're spending million$ and your 43 years of good reputation for, what -- THREE YEARS of doubts in the mind of KPCB limited partners? She filed the lawsuit in 2012. Three years of bad publicity, three years of KPCB clients being wary about investing.
"If I invest a portion of the college endowment fund/pension fund/etc. I am managing into a KPCB round -- and they lose their discrimination lawsuit -- will that hurt my career -- because I invested assets into a predatory firm, and knew about it since 2012?"
There's no WAY I'm risking hiring a person in a 'protected class' -- if they perform poorly and fail to take personal responsibility and 'play the race/gender/sexual harassment/etc. card' and sue -- my firm is being marginalized for three years ?! NOT WORTH IT.
Guess what the only category of person is not a protected class? CAUCASIAN MALES.
Here are 'protected class' types:
- ethnic minority (black, hispanic, asian, etc.) - PROTECTED CLASS ("didn't promote me because they're white and I'm not")
- female of any race: PROTECTED CLASS ("didn't promote me/sexually harassed me/discriminated against me because I'm a girl")
It's in a VC firm's best interest then to HIRE ONLY CAUCASIAN MALES after this farce that put a cloud over KPCB for three years.
There is no enforceable quota, no law, that requires any protected class be hired into a VC fund.
If I'm running a VC fund, I'm hiring caucasian males.
It's not worth the risk KPCB took -- they are the leading VC firm in hiring a broad spectrum of folks, including women, and look what happened to them. BURNED.
I'm also having HR hire resources to check whether the hiree has:
- money problems
- a history of suing others
- a spouse with money problems
- a spouse with a history of suing people
It's my firm and I'm not going out of my way if the 'protected class' can burn me for three years in the media while waiting for a B.S. trial. Three years of bad press; a month-long trial; then it only took TWO DAYS to find out it was a completely frivolous case.
Wow.
If EP really wanted to get more women hired in VC, this was not the way.
Just the opposite.
YoungButEager betrays a significant but unfortunately common misunderstanding of the term “protected class” and its meaning in law.
A protected class does not refer to any particular group of people, but rather the significant categories that anti-discrimination laws apply to.
For instance, religion is a protected class, but not any particular religion. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, prohibits discrimination based on religion because it is a protected class, or classification, that the law applies to. So it protects everyone against religious discrimination. It does not just protect Muslims but not Mormons.
If it protected only particular groups of people it would be unconstitutional, because the constitution mandates equal protection under the law.
Some of the confusion may stem from other uses of the word “class”, such as middle class, upper class and working class. These refer to specific groups of people. But in the Civil Rights Act the usage of the term “class” is completely different.
YoungButEager mentions hiring quotas, but these are already illegal, and have only been applied in the past as a remedy where significant and ongoing discrimination has been proven, and a quota may be applied for a limited time by a federal judge. An example is in the state of Alabama, where the state had not hired a single non-white trooper in its history, and in the 1980s a consent decree forced them to hire one non-white trooper for every new white recruit, but this was only for a limited period of time. Otherwise, hiring quotas are mostly a myth.
YoungButEager says he will only hire white males. “It's my firm and I'm not going out of my way if the 'protected class' can burn me for three years in the media while waiting for a B.S. trial.”
YoungButEager’s partners should look at his misinformed attitudes and philosophy critically, because going forward, they present a significant risk and an ongoing liability for their enterprise.
A protected class does not refer to any particular group of people, but rather the significant categories that anti-discrimination laws apply to.
For instance, religion is a protected class, but not any particular religion. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, prohibits discrimination based on religion because it is a protected class, or classification, that the law applies to. So it protects everyone against religious discrimination. It does not just protect Muslims but not Mormons.
If it protected only particular groups of people it would be unconstitutional, because the constitution mandates equal protection under the law.
Some of the confusion may stem from other uses of the word “class”, such as middle class, upper class and working class. These refer to specific groups of people. But in the Civil Rights Act the usage of the term “class” is completely different.
YoungButEager mentions hiring quotas, but these are already illegal, and have only been applied in the past as a remedy where significant and ongoing discrimination has been proven, and a quota may be applied for a limited time by a federal judge. An example is in the state of Alabama, where the state had not hired a single non-white trooper in its history, and in the 1980s a consent decree forced them to hire one non-white trooper for every new white recruit, but this was only for a limited period of time. Otherwise, hiring quotas are mostly a myth.
YoungButEager says he will only hire white males. “It's my firm and I'm not going out of my way if the 'protected class' can burn me for three years in the media while waiting for a B.S. trial.”
YoungButEager’s partners should look at his misinformed attitudes and philosophy critically, because going forward, they present a significant risk and an ongoing liability for their enterprise.
All of the censorship over at Reddit isn't helping either.
The justice system worked. There may be cases of discrimination in the workplace, but this isn't one of them.
I'm unclear why the VC company that employed her is somehow at fault here and why the Nytimes spun this into a lesson we need to learn about a "boys club". Shouldn't we be learning a lesson about ethics and frivolous lawsuits? It only hurts the chances of women that are facing true discrimination in the work place.
I feel like the person that wrote the article is butt hurt because they didn't agree with the decision.