Ellen Pao: Discrimination defeat, but venture capital partner hopes case will help women

She had sued Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Bryers claiming she had been pressured out of the company

Ellen Pao’s discrimination suit may have emboldened other female employees in Silicon Valley (Reuters) (Reuters)

Following the loss of her $16m gender discrimination lawsuit against the venture capital-firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Bryers, former partner of the firm Ellen Pao took to twitter express her feelings following the case.

She inserted a coded message into the tweets suggesting that she certainly doesn’t feel as though she has been dealt with in a just manner.

Pao, now interim chief of social site Reddit, claimed that she suffered six years of discrimination at the company after she complained about a colleague, Ajit Nazaire, who had allegedly pressured her into a brief affair which she soon broke off.

She is thought to have intentionally left out the number 8 as a reference to California's Proposition 8. This was a 2008 act that banned gay marriage and was possibly used by Pao to evoke the extent of how strong Pao felt the discrimination was.

Other twitter users were quick to react to the news of the case:

"This case sends a powerful signal to Silicon Valley in general and the venture capital industry in particular," she said, "Defendants who lose in court sometimes win outside of it."

In a brief news conference after leaving the courtroom, Pao said: "If I've helped to level the playing field for women and minorities in venture capital, then the battle was worth it."