YouSaid · the spoken record

Ellen Pao

lines on the record: 141
first: 2017-10-02
most recent: 2017-10-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You weren't ready. You were not ready. You had your list. One of the things you write about in the book is this you had your list, what was it, Greg? What is it called? What did you call it? The trial I'm blanking. Oh, I know.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Laid the groundwork, and I know from people coming up to me in the street or writing to me that there were men who were starting to say, you know, my co-worker told me this thing happened to her too, and you bringing it up made her feel comfortable talking about it. So I believe you too. So I think there were enough people starting to talk about it that it laid the groundwork for people to believe. I also think. She did a great job being very meticulous. She had all the receipts. She was very careful in like, I'm not doing this for money. I'm not doing this for fame. I am just laying out what happened to me. So very unemotional, very.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Experience The story It was interesting because yours is gender discrimination. Hers was, I think, even though I think what she really was writing about was a management out of control, which I think is why it was so effective. But she was talking about sexual harassment too, which is a road down the entire, it's another avenue, a terrible, horrible avenue. But do you think that's why it had so much more resonance with Susan at Uber? Or is it part of the same...”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great job narrating her experience and for people to say all right this is actually happening let's not try to pick apart right the story or the person let's look at the problem and I think in the last year we've seen people now understand there's a problem”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“By the press or by the public, but I think there were enough people behind the scenes being supportive. So I would write to some of them and tell them that what they're doing, you know, you're doing a good thing, I believe you, that this really did happen to you and just ignore the comments, right? Just move on. And I think over time, it laid the groundwork for Susan to come out. And she did.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was giving people a better understanding of what's happening that a lot of things had happened to individuals and they didn't know how to process it. And here was Way of like looking at it in context and having it kind of voiced as this is actually discriminate discriminatory this is actually biased and this is what is systematically preventing you from succeeding and it's not your own fault and people you know they started talking to each other they started talking publicly and you saw this slew of woman after woman after woman and few men bringing up their own stories each time getting slammed mm-hmm”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On running Reddit. I think it was hard to see that this was happening to so many other people and there was still this narrative about how this case was a problem. It's now making people less willing to hire women. And also there was so much focus on the gender and there are also all of these other types of bias and discrimination. There was not like a sophistication around the discussions around it. It was very much like how do we hold on to what we've set up and make sure that we can continue to run things the way we've been running things right.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A sense of relief, like finally, I can just get out of this and not have to be in the public spotlight, not have to be thinking about these issues. I could just move on. It's not like.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was fascinated by the racial part of it. I suppose I should have been struck by the gender issues, but I was more struck by how they were portraying you as an Asian person because they use words like inscrutable. It felt so like an old Charlie Chan movie, like inscrutable. All the old idiotic tropes about Asians were in there in that trial. And I kept, no one noticed them. I kept going, what? Did they just say she was inscrutable? Because I think that's what they just said. Like it was really interesting. I found that to be much more disturbing to me in many ways because the other stuff was so obvious. This was these were slowly layered in in a way that I thought was very effective also at the same time. I don't know if it helped the jury dealt with the jury or not like that. So when the trial ended, and you write about this in the book, it puts you at a crossroads.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I can understand it even though I was corporate. It had to be one specific type of bias. So it had to be the gender bias that was holding me back by more than 50%. But there was also age bias, and there was also racial bias. So, you know, was it all gender or was there some other factor? I was fascinated by the”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was a part of me that was like, it's so unfair, and I should win. But if you look at how the loss license is, like, you need to win by more than you're a lawyer.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Early on, the fact that every juror candidate who believed that tech was a biased industry got booted off, that seems like a fundamental error. And I feel like I should have pushed harder against that. I ended up giving $700,000 of documents. They gave $5,000, right? So. That wasn't a great strategy, but I just didn't have the resources. So they had people who. They had teams of people doing things, and I just didn't.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I could have been smarter on the PR front. I could have spent more time with the press. I could have had, you know, I think they had like points every day that they were trying to make and they were handing them out. And I was more like, oh, my lawyer said we shouldn't say anything. The judge said not to say anything. So I'm going to follow the rules. And that obviously it didn't work so well. I think”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I was like, that was my one escape. You have regrets about doing that or your own anything that you did that you think you did wrong. Like not wrong. I'm not saying you did something wrong, but in terms of strategically in dealing with this.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, Shonda Rhimes was like, I followed your trial every day because I told her, I'm like, I watched her show every week because I was like, that was my one escape. But I think it had an impact on people because it was the first time these things were articulated out loud in public. And there were so many people who said, you know, these things happened to me, but I haven't even told my husband. I haven't told anybody for 10 years, but these things happen. So I believe you. And I think it was also the aggressiveness of the attacks on me where people were like, hey, I actually believe you and they felt like they wanted to come out and say that to me. And that was super helpful to me.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There were people who were reading your coverage every day because you were live tweeting from the trial and that had an impact.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Surprised in any way. And you see it with every other person who sues oh, they're a poor performer, oh, their case has no merit, we're going to fight vigorously”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sharp elbows or not sharp enough, and you know it continues. Yeah, but there was nothing I could have done to be perfect. But the thing is, we did the same thing to the other women in the firm. So there was this narrative around how we work that was very sharpened and presented in a way that was incredibly aggressive at trial.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was super aggressive. They had a narrative about you. And you actually talked about it in the book. I think I tweeted the quote. You were aggressive and unlikable and yet shy and not, you know, nothing was that sharp elbow.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was just so unfair. And also, like my team, they were ethical. They were really like they followed the law. They wanted the truth to come out. And there was less of that on the other side. I don't want to call them unethical, but there was just like, you know, the way they presented things was very.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I said I was going to stay and file this complaint. And then I was going to leave. And then my lawyers were like, no, no, no, no. You need to stay. Right, right.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They shouldn't have put it on me to make that decision, but I felt like it was my fault. Bad things happen to this other partner. I thought worse things could keep happening if nobody holds people accountable and changes the culture because this is something that seems to now be rewarded.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I could have left, but I was like, but somebody has to stop this, something really bad could have happened. I would have felt that was on me because I had let that person, I had let the guy who was harassing people stay and”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I was there, I guess, two years and I tried to quit. And they're like, no, no, no, you're doing the best of anybody in the firm. You should stay. And I said, fine. So I stayed. Let's see, and then in 2012, so that must have been like four years later, like things just kept happening. I wasn't progressing. None of the women were progressing, and bad things were happening to people. I ended up going through every avenue I could internally. And finally, I said, okay, this has to stop. What prevented you from leaving?”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, to be sitting next to John Door in an industry that was just changing. I mean, it was transforming and he had the Catbird seat, so to be next to him, to be able to see everything that was going on, to be able to see all these new technologies was exciting to me.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's the best salesperson in the world. So he sat me down and was like, just do it. I'm just try. We'll open doors. And I said, well, why not?”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I was like, this is really weird because it matches my background exactly, and I had absolutely no rhyme or reason for any of the things I've done. So it was all very random, but it fits some specific ideal of a person that they were looking for. I was like, well, I'll just interview and see what they're thinking, why it's interesting. And I actually turned down the job initially. I was like, you know, not for me. I'm on this trajectory. And they're telling me in a year I could be a VP, but I'm ready. I'll be a VPP in a year at a startup if I just continue on this track. But then like John Do Sold me.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then, what were the other requirements? And then the jobs in these companies had to be either corporate development or business development.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Had jobs at leading enterprise software companies and worked at startups, preferably Kleiner-backed, right? So tell me was Kleinerbacked.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Somebody, a friend of mine showed me the job spec and he has been pitched for chief of staff, but he didn't, he wasn't interested. But you looked at the job spec and it was, I wanted somebody with an electrical engineering degree or computer science degree from a top school. And they wanted somebody with a JDMBA and they wanted somebody who”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“With some really cool people. And I work in Jim Clark. Yeah, I'll never forget I was at a dinner with him, and he said, you know, Carol, if you have a couple million dollars, I was like, your group is a little small, like, because he lived in this world of multi-millionaires. And it was very funny. I just didn't think that. I thought people were very wealthy, like to be petted quite a bit, and so I didn't see how an online portal for their wealth was something that they, I don't know, it was question it more. Yes, I was like rich people like the leather and the...”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It also got by Microsoft. Actually, I did in between, I worked for Andy Rubin at Danger Research, which also got bought by Microsoft. Right. Okay. So three big, like over $300 million acquisitions by Microsoft. Also worked at my CFO.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that was a new concept. And then Microsoft immediately tanked it down. It was one of those, there were like 27 purchases during that era that were all, and a lot of people got very wealthy doing that. And so you went from there to...”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and then it got bought before I started, it got announced that Microsoft had acquired it. I joined in this flux where it was before Microsoft really dug its fingers into it, but there was some change. It was cool. There were a lot of cool people. There are a lot of people from General Magic and from Apple. And we're building a cool product. It was revolutionary at the time. Right. People would be using the internet and their computers in the living room instead of in the office. That's right. And that was a new concept.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I want to come back, and then I was like, I'm so out of touch with tech. I'm going to go back to business school. I ended up spending my summer at Bain in San Francisco, and I worked for a couple of tech projects and loved it. I thought it was great. Came back after. But were they? I don't know if we're allowed to talk about our clients, but one was like a big software company and one was a hardware company that was tanking. So it was two, like one on the rise in a new industry and one tanking. So you could see it was just an interesting contrast. It was fun.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A little bit of ignorance, but also I like the logic, and I thought I could do big things with law that at the time the electrical engineering was a little bit, you know, Silicon Valley wasn't that big yet. It was more limited, and I just didn't know what was out there. So I thought corporate law could have an impact and I ended up not realizing what corporate law actually was.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why not to Princeton? And then after Princeton, I went to Harvard Law School. And I practiced corporate law for two years a year in New York and then a year in Hong Kong. Mostly men in the group. And it was fine, but I knew from my summer jobs that I didn't want to practice law. It was a lot of unhappy people who are lawyers. Sure.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the goals weren't that great. You know, they were like if you could be a professor or a doctor, that would be so awesome. But you can do it if you work hard enough”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The thought was like they had come from China on education scholarships and for them like education was the path to success and the path to contributing back.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, it's nice. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't quite Adylla because it was a little bit of a small town. They didn't really have very many Asians, so there was a little bit of. There, but my parents were, you know, like we had dinner together every night, it was very education oriented, and my mom was a researcher at Bell Lab, so we had access to computers. Yeah, my dad was a math professor, so it was very, you know, we had access to a lot of information and a lot of, you know, educational tools and focus.”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I started out studying electrical engineering at Princeton, and I also did a side certificate in the Wilson School of Public International Affairs. I went straight to Harvard Law School. But can I just go back to the background?”
2017-10-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Ellen Pao, author, “Reset” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT