Ellen Pao critiqued for interactions with female colleagues

SAN FRANCISCO—Ellen Pao took the stand for the third day Wednesday, facing a full day of her former employer's lawyer attacking everything she's said so far about the gender bias case.

"For Kleiner Perkins to come out winning, I think they need to eviscerate every claim she's making," said Janine Yancey, chief executive officer of Emtrain.com, a human resources online training site.

Pao was hired at the venture capital firm in 2005 as chief of staff to senior partner John Doerr. She later transitioned into the role of junior partner.

In her $16 million bias suit, she contends that Kleiner, one of the most powerful VC firms in Silicon Valley, was never a level playing field for women. Female partners were held to different standards than men and not given the support necessary to succeed.

Hermle spent the morning trying to establish that Pao overall was difficult to work with and had touchy relationships with three women in the office.

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One example she gave was Pao's frustrations with her secretary, Carmen Yip.

"She was often late so we had some discussion about her lateness," Pao said from the stand.

Hermle then pulled up an email from Yip sent in January of 2009 when she explained that she'd been late because her landlord, whose English was limited, had been in a car accident outside of the house and she had helped to translate.

Pao's emailed response was that while it was great that Yip wanted to be late to help with her landlord, "it would be better for me if you could come to work on time."

Hermle also cited tensions between Pao and another assistant at the firm, as well as with Trae Vassallo, another junior investor at Kleiner.

In an email read aloud in court, Pao called Vassallo "competitive and defensive" and unable to take feedback and listen.

Eventually John Doerr, a managing partner at the firm, asked Pao to mend her relationship with Vassallo, perhaps by spending time outside of the office so they could build a better working relationship.

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Hermle also spent at least an hour going over two incidents involving a Kleiner senior partner, Randy Komisar, that Pao has detailed in her testimony.

The first was a gift of a book of poetry that Komisar gave Pao. The second was a dinner invitation Komisar made to her in 2007.

In Pao's view, Komisar's gift of "The Book of Longing" by singer and author Leonard Cohen was "weird," because he gave it to her on Valentine's Day and it included discussions of sex and drawings of naked women.

"I didn't know what to make of it," she said on the stand.

In Hermle's telling, the book was an outgrowth of their ongoing discussion of Buddhism.

Both Komisar and Cohen are Buddhists and Komisar also wrote a book, "The Monk and the Riddle," about applying Buddhist insights to innovation.

Pao had previously given Komisar a board game, called "The Abundance Game," and what she described as "a gag gift" of a plastic Buddha.

Hermle also noted that Komisar's wife, Debra Dunn, had actually purchased the book for Komisar to give to Pao, using her own Amazon account.

Another issue concerned a dinner invitation and whether it was a possible come on or not.

Pao said she told Komisar that she'd worked during a weekend in the Kleiner offices in Menlo Park, Calif., about 35 miles south of her apartment in San Francisco. Komisar lives near the office.

Komisar told her "you should have told me you were working. My wife was out of town and we could have had dinner."

Pao testified that she didn't know if the invitation was a possible precursor to a romantic overture and that it had made her uncomfortable.

In Hermle's explanation, Komisar merely wanted to tell Pao that if she'd spent the weekend working that far from home he'd been offering to keep her company.

She asked several times whether Pao had told Komisar that the interaction made her uncomfortable or that she considered it inappropriate, which she hadn't.

She also noted that when Pao told Kleiner senior partner John Doerr about it later, she said "it may have been innocent."

None of this should come as a surprise, said Yancey, who practiced employment law for 20 years before founding her firm.

"This is basic stuff. You don't ever expect anyone to tell you to stop, because people hate personal conflict. It's not anything against her, that's just human nature," she said.

MORE ON THE PAO-KLEINER PERKINS TRIAL

March 10: Ellen Pao testimony leads to visible cringing

March 9:Ellen Pao begins testimony in Silicon Valley sex bias trial

March 6: Mary Meeker quotes cap second week of Ellen Pao trial

March 5: Ellen Pao trial takes a raunchy turn

March 4: Kleiner bigwig takes heat over tape

March 3: John Doerr testifies at trial brought by ex-mentee Pao

March 2: Man Ellen Pao accused of retaliation had bonus docked

Feb 27: Little 'upward mobility' in venture capital

Feb 26: Ellen Pao could have made $2.6 mln as a senior partner

Feb 25: Pao case presents dueling views of opportunity

Feb 24: Ellen Pao lawyer says KP 'not a level playing field'