> An anonymous Reddit employee sent a letter to Kleiner’s legal team, asking them to subpoena Reddit employees “for information regarding conflicts with Ellen Pao.”
Wow. I had heard about the case, but didn't know the drama had sprawled over to reddit. All things put aside, including my own biases, if I was reddit's board, I'd get rid of her immediately. It doesn't matter whether if her claims are justified, or even if she's 100% in the right (and Kliener was in the wrong) - she's obviously a toxic presence and brought some of that toxicity with her over to reddit.
Good heavens. You've just levied a harsh accusation against Pao: you called her a toxic presence, and called for her immediate termination.
Your only evidence is one letter sent by anonymous employee (assuming the NYT has accurately described the person in question and they were in fact at Reddit).
It's very possible the employee just had a grudge against Pao and was trying to complicate things (No CEO will ever avoid having enemies). Or they weren't a Reddit employee at all. We know almost nothing. You're calling for a woman's career to end, and for Reddit to upend their management, based on a single anecdote.
We know nothing of Pao's actual performance at Reddit. Presumably the board made her interim CEO for a reason. Claims such as yours demand much stronger evidence.
> Your only evidence is one letter sent by anonymous employee (assuming the NYT has accurately described the person in question and they were in fact at Reddit).
Do you really need more evidence? Your CEO should be a pillar of stability. A rock, a mountain of fortitude. One mistake or "situation" I can understand, but it appears her issues have followed her to reddit. There's clearly and obviously something more going on. Again the point is not one of right or wrong, but who you want heading up your company. And quite frankly, I wouldn't want her anywhere near my properties.
If you have a person who never does anything wrong, but trouble has a way of following them everywhere, would you want that person working for you? Put yourself in the shoes of reddit's board. This isn't about her career, they don't care about her career, her needs or wants, it's about what's best for reddit.
This isn't a fantasy world where ideology wins out, the good guy wins, and pragmatism and compromise are only found it stories... No, this is the real world where you have to weigh the benefits and drawbacks and make extremely hard and difficult decisions.
If you really believe this, you need to recognize that sometimes the best people are fleeing a bad situation -- a situation that they were a victim of.
I don't really know the details of what happened at KP, but I am not surprised that discrimination (deliberate or otherwise) exists in venture capital. Did it happen to her? I don't know. Will the real truth ever come out? Probably not. Are there multiple versions of the real truth? Probably.
But you are calling for her termination. For something unrelated to her current job. Her resume and academic achievements place her in the exceptionally accomplished category, so to casually describe her as toxic, without first-hand experiences, seems antagonistic and trollish, at best.
She can't control what an anonymous Reddit employee might or might not do. That's no reason to fire her.
Thanks for stalking me instead of taking my comment at face value (I wonder if that's a new, evolving form of the ad hominem logical fallacy).
It's funny, actually. I've never seen so many downvotes flying on hackernews as I have in this thread. Not my comment, this is actually my first downvoted comment on this website in 2 years (which would contradict your claim of me being "a troll"), but watching this thread proves it's a hot button issue for many people.
I'm a "she" by the way. And no, my comment history isn't littered with rude comments. I may speak frankly and honestly which is often confused with being rude, especially to those who are extremely sensitive to such things, but the hard truth should never be considered "rude", it should be welcomed. Warts and all.
> But you are calling for her termination. For something unrelated to her current job.
I am calling for her termination for something on-going with her current job and related to her old job. Did you not read the article? A Reddit employee asked the defense to subpena more employees because of conflicts at her new job. I highly doubt the employee was "trolling" the defense with his or her request (more than half of reddit's staff is female). There is obviously something of substance there and I think that combined with her prior experience is telling of the toxicity she is bringing with her wherever she goes.
I don't care if she's in the right or wrong, I only care about reddit since it's a website I use every day and have for years. I would not want a CEO with such problems and baggage following them around heading up any company I'm a part of or I enjoy. It's like that one kid in school who always said they hated "drama" yet always found themselves smack-dab in the middle of it. They may have had no part in the drama, but it followed them around. They were a toxic presence and that's exactly what's begun to happen with Ellen Pao according to this article's bit about reddit.
More than that, it's strange that KP hasn't settled. That's something that, if there was actually evidence, even mildly strong "iffy" evidence, they would want to do immediately. They wouldn't let it move to trial. Unless they had evidence which supports their own side of the story. Again, that's largely irrelevant to me. Even if she's 100% correct, I wouldn't want someone with all that baggage heading up my company. CEOs need to be fortitude personified.
So you're putting "biases aside", but yet you're suggesting that the board should terminate her immediately, without any investigation. And they should do this because there's one source, anonymous, alluding that she may not have treated Reddit employees properly...
Seriously, I wouldn't call this a well-thought and balanced position, which is the minimum you'd expect from your board.
I think the situation with KP should have pretty much disqualified her right off the bat. She shouldn't have been hired in the first place (though I think she got the job by default thanks to Yishan unexpectedly quitting). They shouldn't have hired her at least until her lawsuit/court case was over with. Right now it's clearly a huge distraction and has proven to be as such.
If reddit didn't hire her to begin with, they wouldn't have had one of their employees telling the defense to subpena the rest of them because of all the conflicts. Her actions with that company are now affecting and a distraction for reddit itself.
Put yourself in the shoes of a reddit board member and tell me you'd gladly hire her to run your company. With all her current baggage and the drama, and conflict with your current employees. Tell me you'd genuinely be happy and fine with her overseeing your company. One which happens to be one of the hottest web properties and quickest rising social media sites out there.
Your job, as a board member, should be to minimize any and all risks to your business, no, investment. Ellen Pao is risk personified at the moment.
Uh, no. You cannot assume anything is this case except that it is going to be very surprising.
These people operate a level that normal people simply do not comprehend. They expect that the rules do not apply to them, and they respond very badly when someone breaks that bubble.
This is why we have courts. And this is going to get ugly.
Wow. I had heard about the case, but didn't know the drama had sprawled over to reddit. All things put aside, including my own biases, if I was reddit's board, I'd get rid of her immediately. It doesn't matter whether if her claims are justified, or even if she's 100% in the right (and Kliener was in the wrong) - she's obviously a toxic presence and brought some of that toxicity with her over to reddit.