Ellen Pao Sues Kleiner Perkins: Silicon Valley's Harassment Reckoning Begins

In May 2012, Ellen Pao — a junior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Silicon Valley's most storied venture firm — filed a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination and retaliation that would become one of the most closely watched employment cases in technology history.

At the center of her complaint was Ajit Nazre, a senior partner at the firm and a prominent Indian-American venture capitalist. Pao alleged that Nazre had pressured her into an affair, and that after she ended the relationship, he retaliated against her professionally — excluding her from meetings and emails and undermining her standing at the firm. She further alleged that the firm's leadership failed to investigate or act on her complaints.

Nazre, who denied the allegations, left Kleiner Perkins in October 2012.

The lawsuit detailed a pattern of alleged gender bias extending beyond the harassment claims — disparities in promotion, pay, and the allocation of board seats and deal flow between male and female partners. Kleiner Perkins denied all of the allegations.

The case went to trial in San Francisco in early 2015, and the jury ruled against Pao on all claims. But the lawsuit's larger effect was cultural: it forced Silicon Valley's most powerful firms to confront, in public and under oath, how women were treated inside them — three years before #MeToo gave that confrontation a name.

This article summarizes court filings and contemporaneous reporting from 2012. It reports on allegations and legal proceedings, not findings of liability.