1. Ellen Kangru Pao is an American lawyer and businesswoman who was the chief executive officer of the social media company Reddit from 2014 to 2015.
31 Facts About Ellen Pao
1. 2.
Ellen Pao was born to a Taiwanese American family in 1970 in New Jersey.
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Ellen Pao is the middle child of three daughters born to Tsyh-Wen Lee and Young-Ping Pao, immigrants from Taiwan.
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Ellen Pao's father, Young-Ping Pao, was a professor at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
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Ellen Pao is fluent in English and Mandarin and first learned to code from her mother at age ten.
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The Ellen Pao family raised their children in Maplewood, New Jersey, where she graduated in 1987 from Columbia High School.
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Young-Ping Pao died in 1987, during Ellen's final year of high school.
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Ellen Pao's maternal grandfather was a graduate of the Republic of China Military Academy who served as a commander in the Chinese Civil War under Chiang Kai-shek.
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Ellen Pao worked at several companies in Silicon Valley including BEA Systems as Senior Director of Corporate Business Development from 2001 until 2005.
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In 2005, Ellen Pao joined Kleiner Perkins, an established venture capital firm in San Francisco, as technical chief of staff for John Doerr, a senior partner, a job that required degrees in engineering, law, and business and experience in enterprise software.
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Doerr, who has expressed awareness of what he considers a gender gap at venture capital firms, mentored Ellen Pao, liberally providing feedback, but, in the end, agreed with the other senior partners who had made negative evaluations of her work at the firm.
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On May 10,2012, Ellen Pao filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against her employer.
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Ellen Pao claimed that she was terminated abruptly while Kleiner Perkins claimed that she was given a month to accept a paid five-month transition to an operating role.
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Ellen Pao's lawyer said she was fired in retaliation for her lawsuit and amended the complaint to add that cause of action.
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The firm said Ellen Pao was terminated for performance reasons unrelated to the lawsuit.
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Ellen Pao joined Reddit in 2013 as the head of business development and strategic partnerships.
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Ellen Pao stated that a goal for the following year was making it easier for people to become Redditors.
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Ellen Pao became interim CEO in November 2014 after Yishan Wong resigned.
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One of the largest changes made under Ellen Pao was the banning of revenge porn in March 2015.
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In June and July 2015, Ellen Pao was the subject of criticism and harassment by Reddit users after five Reddit communities were banned for harassment and Reddit's director of talent was fired.
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Ellen Pao subsequently founded the nonprofit Project Include with Erica Baker, Tracy Chou, Freada Kapor Klein and four other women in the technology industry.
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In November 2015, Ellen Pao revealed that this was not the case and later confirmed that she was writing a memoir.
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On May 10,2012, Ellen Pao filed a gender discrimination suit against Kleiner Perkins which went to trial in late February 2015.
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On June 1,2015, Ellen Pao filed an appeal, one week before the deadline.
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Ellen Pao filed an objection, arguing that an award against her could result in a chilling effect on future discrimination cases.
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Ellen Pao noted that there are behaviors that do not quite cross the line but can subtly change how a woman is perceived in the workplace.
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However, one week later when Ellen Pao formally dropped her appeal, Kleiner Perkins filed to close the case without payment per its original announcement.
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Ellen Pao received increased harassment as a result and the petition for her removal surpassed 200,000 signatures.
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When shown that the media was covering this post, Ellen Pao tweeted "thanks for not blaming me for it".
30.
In June 2020, Ellen Pao released a tweet through her official Twitter profile, stating the need to "call out" Reddit's leadership.
31.
Ellen Pao then married Buddy Fletcher in December 2007 in San Francisco.