Going Through It

INTRO:

ELLEN PAO: When the news of my lawsuit became public, there was a wave of reporting and a wave of trolling. I was “selfish,” I was “slutty,” I was “stupid.” I was “not a hard worker.” I was “trying to take shortcuts.” I “hated free speech.” You know there were all of these things that are so not me.

ANN FRIEDMAN: When Ellen Pao got a job at Kleiner Perkins, a major Silicon Valley venture capitalist firm, she was unaware that seven years later, her experience there would make international headlines.

In 2012, Ellen sued Kleiner Perkins for gender discrimination. And then she took a job with Reddit, a company that prides itself as an online platform for open commentary, with loose regulations and volunteer moderators. But if you’re outside of the Reddit community, you might know it as a breeding ground for racism, sexism, and hate speech—things Ellen was already working against. Soon, Ellen was fighting on two fronts: one, in the courtroom, trying to win her gender discrimination lawsuit. And another against the trolls on Reddit, who were coming after not just her, but her family. And when it all came crashing down, she had a choice: should she stay in Silicon Valley, or leave it all behind?

I’m Ann Friedman and this is Going Through It: a show about how hard it can be to figure out when to quit and when to keep going.

On this episode: What happens when, to do your best work, you have to reform your industry…or maybe the entire culture?

FRIEDMAN: Why after this horrible experience at Kleiner Perkins did you charge into this job at Reddit?

PAO: I had looked at Reddit as a company to invest in when I was at Kleiner Perkins. There were so many things that were so positive about the site.

NEWS CLIP: The internet can be a brutal place. Bullies are emboldened to unleash cruelty. That seemed to be what was happening when a young man posted this photo of Ohio State University sophomore, Balpreet Kaur in the “Funny” section of the social news website Reddit dot com.

PAO: Some Redditor took a picture of a woman, I think she was at an airport. And…

NEWS CLIP: The caption read, “I’m not sure what to conclude from this.”

PAO: Is this a woman or a man? She had some facial hair. And she was wearing a turban and he was just making fun of her. And she came back really graciously, and wrote:

NEWS CLIP: “I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body…”

PAO: You know, it got the original poster to apologize. And I thought, that's the kind of conversation that can be really positive. And I thought, “wow if if we can encourage that in the internet and in the world, what a good thing to do.”

FRIEDMAN: Was there a moment when your perception of Reddit started to shift?

PAO: There were two moments. One was when we had this really bad use of our platform.

NEWS CLIP: Let’s get now to Boston, apparently there’s been an explosion at the Boston Marathon...

NEWS CLIP: There are about a dozen people hurt. No confirmed fatalities right now...

NEWS CLIP: ...called an act of terror on another American city, Boston.

PAO: When the Boston Marathon bombing happened, The FBI released some photos of suspects, and some Redditors took it too far and started guessing at who those suspects were and they named somebody…

NEWS CLIP: Sunil Tripathi … Sunil Tripathi …

PAO: And that person, Sunil Tripathi, had nothing to do with that and his poor family got harassed.

NEWS CLIP: Right, we can wonder if the New York Post would have its terribly irresponsible cover if its not Reddit. But there was also a huge backlash. They were swearing and saying, “Reddit screwed up.”

PAO: Seeing Reddit being used to have this cruel witch hunt at an individual and at his family was a huge wake up call.

The second incident was when people stole the nude photos of different celebrities and started posting them all over the Internet. Most sites shut it down. Reddit held on to its free speech and said we're not going to shut it down. So at Reddit we continued to post links to these unauthorized nude photos that had been stolen from people. And that was a big wake up call too, like, this is not what we want to do.

FRIEDMAN: And so by the time you were deciding like, “I do you want to step into this role,” I'm guessing that you were aware that this was going to be something you had to address head on, this sort of toxic element. Were you scared?

PAO: It felt more like something that had to be done, that someone had to do. It's kind of like literally taking out the trash like somebody has to do it. And let's just do it and get it over with. Otherwise it's just going to fester and get stinkier and get more of a nuisance. Like, if we can clean up Reddit then nobody else has an excuse.

FRIEDMAN: And when you say nobody else you mean all the other tech companies in Silicon Valley, right?

PAO: Right. So when we took down unauthorized nude porn, including revenge porn, everybody followed. If I could clean up right it could hopefully have a good influence on the rest of the internet.

FRIEDMAN: So, while you’re working to combat harassment that’s happening on and within Reddit, you’re also at trial against Kleiner Perkins, which is another huge company in Silicon Valley, and it’s a gender discrimination lawsuit. You’re dealing with harassment, the same stuff you’re trying to deal with at Reddit. What are your days like during this period?

PAO: So I didn't sleep very much. I probably slept... like if I slept three hours, that was a good day. So I would get up super early and you know and kind of see what was going on with the site. And send out a bunch of emails. We were still recruiting so I was deep in trying to engage with different candidates. And then I would go to court probably from 9:00 to 4:00 every day. And I would usually check my messages over lunch, sometimes to a phone call. And then after court I would go straight to the Reddit office and I would spend a few hours there. I would try to get home before my daughter went to sleep. And then I would be back online after that until probably like 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.

FRIEDMAN: It sounds like what you’re dealing with in the courtroom is pretty similar to what you’re dealing with at your job.

PAO: I felt like I was getting attacked from all sides. Harassment...people not happy with my litigation, people not happy with the changes I was making on the site.

FRIEDMAN: What was the public’s perception of you at this time?

PAO: When the news of my lawsuit became public, there was a wave of reporting and a wave of trolling. It was a very larger than life, evil persona that people put to my name. And it was never something I could identify with. I was “selfish,” I was “slutty,” I was “stupid.” I was “not a hard worker.” I was “trying to take shortcuts.” I “hated free speech.” You know there were all of these things that are so not me.

There was one article that talked about me in the New York Times that said— he was skeptical of my claims because he had never heard anybody talk about it before. The kind of skepticism and, “she must be a poor performer.” And the personal attacks on my family...it was incredibly vicious.

So the piece that kept me going was, well, this has to change. Like we can't allow this level of harassment.

It was also hearing from people. Hearing from people that it was making a difference, hearing from people who wanted to see these changes, hearing from people who had had similar experiences or who had had terrible experiences on Reddit the site. Hearing that they wanted the changes and that this was important to them and that was inspiring to them or it was validating for them was really motivating. And it was really encouraging.

FRIEDMAN: The jury is discussing all of these big issues that affect so many more people than just you in Silicon Valley, and the verdict is going to be potentially a huge win for women in your industry. What’s going through your mind as they’re deliberating all of this?

PAO: I guess it was the optimist in me. I just thought wow this is just wrong. Like they can't allow this to happen. And the jury should be able to see it.

There was a point where they called everybody back in so that the jury could read its verdict. You know they had voted and they had agreed on a verdict and we all came back to the courtroom. And I could tell from the body language—people wouldn't make eye contact. There was one guy who made eye contact who looked so angry at me and I was like “Ooh. This is not going to be good.”

PAO (clip): I want to thank my family and friends for your love and support through this very challenging time. I’m grateful to my legal team for getting me a day in court …

NEWS CLIP: That is Ellen Pao, she may have lost her gender discrimination suit against her employer Kleiner Perkins, but the topic of discrimination...

PAO: One of the women on the jury spoke up about how she thought about it and she was one of the jurors who had voted to uphold my claims and I was just so impressed by her and that really helped me, kind of, feel better about losing because I saw like I had at least reached this woman and maybe I had reached a lot of other people.

FRIEDMAN: And then, I can’t imagine, you have to go back to your day job at Reddit, where you’re trying to push through these really big, difficult changes. What was that like?

PAO: I think overall, many people were happy with the changes. There were a lot of people who were not and they were the more active and vociferous people. And then there were a lot of people who were just bandwagoning. I thought I could ride it out. But then all of a sudden, Like all of a sudden like I was suppose to have a meeting with two of the board members and I was like, “oh shit this does not sound good.”

And at a certain point the board decided that I should resign.

NEWS CLIP: A shake up at the top for Reddit after a user uproar. Many of its moderators started shutting down some of the most trafficked parts of the sight, in response to a popular employee being fired. CEO Ellen Pao apologized for how the entire situation was handled but it didn’t quiet the criticism, so today she resigned as interim chief executive officer.

PAO: And they cited, you know, they wanted a higher number of users than I said I could get them to. I don't think they've reached that number of users now, three years later, but that was a cited reason. But I think at that point I was just like, “well you know if you don't understand the work that's gone into what we've done and if you can't appreciate the changes that have been made then maybe this is not a good fit.” And in some ways it was also a relief. To not have to continue every day pushing that rock up the hill.

FRIEDMAN: So what was that last day at Reddit even like?

PAO: The last day was bizarre. I'm like packing up my stuff and the new CEO comes in, and he's like, “Let's have a party!” And I was like, “Whoa, I'm not even out of a building yet.” And it was like just, you know, another day it Reddit: complete chaos.

FRIEDMAN: So you walk out of this door, what’s next for you?

PAO: I have a friend who lives in Hawaii and she had—I don't think I invited myself, I think she invited me out there.It was weird to go from being so busy because even after the trial ended like, we were just constantly working. It was just a very dramatic change because even when I had been on vacation before, you’d be busy, you’d had stuff to do. And here I really had absolutely no responsibility.

FRIEDMAN: Did you like that? Were you like, “I could get used to this”?

PAO: It was at the end of the trip. Like, just lying on the paddle board and just kind of floating around and just, you know, enjoying nature and being with family. I was like, “wow there is life after tech.” You don't have to be in tech to have a good life or to enjoy yourself. The idea of just not having the pressure and not having that feeling of having to do things for other people and being able to just do something for myself felt very powerful.

I felt like I had, you know, made some substantial changes to Reddit the site. That I had a contribution to changing people's attitudes and perceptions of the tech meritocracy. And maybe that was enough.

That was kind of what was going on in my mind because it was it was hard. I mean it was a lot of: how much do I have to do? Like how much more? How much more harassment are people going to heap on me? How much more am I going to be undervalued or unappreciated for the work that I'm doing, and maybe this isn't a good place for me. And maybe I've done made my contribution and maybe it's time to do something totally different. Like maybe I had done my service and it would be OK for me to just take a break.

FRIEDMAN: So you’re basically like, do I go back to Silicon Valley and keep pushing that boulder up the hill, or do I sun myself on the boulder in Hawaii without a purpose but with a lot of relaxation... What did you decide?

PAO: So I came back, and I did kickboxing for a few months. It was kind of funny I met this woman and she was like “kickboxing I don't think I'm angry enough to kick box.” I was like “oh I'm angry lady.” [laughs]

That ended up being like— it was good. It was very therapeutic. I spent, you know, a lot of time with my therapist. I kind of adjusted to not working and I readjusted to, you know, life as this new person where people were so much more supportive. And then I started you know reconnecting with people in the tech world.

FRIEDMAN: So who were some of those supportive people, and did they give you the courage or the desire to get back out there in Silicon Valley and start working for change again?

PAO: I met with Erica Joy Baker. I met with Freada Kapor Klein. I met with Bethanye Blount. And we were talking about like all of these problems in tech. We started talking about, like, well what could we do to change things? And you know I had dinner with Erica and Tracy Chou and we really thought about like, how can we tell people what they should actually be doing? And we ended up starting a group and we called it Project Include and we said “OK we will set up a website and put out all of our recommendations,” so that people know that it's not just one training. It's not waiting for the pipeline to fix itself. But there are all these things—I think it ended up being 87 recommendations—that you can do. Like can we get your portfolio companies, or your company if you're a CEO, to share data on where you are on your diversey demographics and on your satisfaction levels so that we can actually show a set of startups that are doing much better than the big companies that are out there.

FRIEDMAN: You know more than anyone, I think, that Silicon Valley is a place that is tough to make big, lasting change. I’m wondering if you’re optimistic about the work you’re doing now?

PAO: I hope so, because I hope all of this work that I'm doing is productive. I think it would be so disappointing if five years from now, not very much has changed. And I realize that all of this work that I've done, as an introvert, staying in the public eye—which is not what I want to do—that I've done all that for nothing. It would be really disappointing. And then I'll feel like, “God, I should've stayed in Hawaii!”

OUTRO:

FRIEDMAN: Ellen Pao is probably not on a paddleboard in Hawaii right now. She is the co-founder of Project Include, which is a non-profit that uses data to advocate for diversity in the tech industry.

CREDITS:

FRIEDMAN: Going Through It is an original series from MailChimp. And I’m your host, Ann Friedman. I’m held afloat by producers Eleanor Kagan, Megan Tan, Gabrielle Lewis, and Claire Tighe. This episode was edited by Joel Lovell. It was scored and mixed by Hannis Brown. Thanks to Max Linsky, for whom past is bro-logue, and everyone at Pineapple Street Media.

TEASER:

FRIEDMAN: On the next episode of Going Through It, what happens when you can’t commit — to your career, or to your dream?

CHARLOTTE CHO: I was in tears. And then just, everything was drenched. I got there. No one was even there because it was snowing so hard. And so we spent a lot of money to even have that set-up. And I was thinking, “what am I doing? Is this what I should be doing? Do people even care?” It was a moment of a lot of self-doubt.

FRIEDMAN: Charlotte Cho now runs Soko Glam, one of the largest retailers of Korean skin care in the United States. But there was a time in her life when she couldn’t figure out what she was passionate about. I sat down with Charlotte to talk about not just starting your own business but really committing to it.