Ellen Pao

Current Company

Project Include — Co-Founder & CEO

The Lawsuit That Changed Silicon Valley

Ellen Pao filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2012, alleging that the legendary venture capital firm had passed her over for promotion and retaliated against her for complaining about a hostile work environment. Though the jury ultimately ruled in Kleiner Perkins' favor, the trial became a watershed moment for Silicon Valley — it put the industry's gender dynamics on public trial and emboldened thousands of women in tech to speak up about their own experiences.

Before the lawsuit, Ellen Pao had built a career at the intersection of law, technology, and venture capital. She holds a JD from Harvard Law School and an electrical engineering degree from Princeton, and had worked at prestigious firms before joining KPCB. Her willingness to risk her career by suing one of the most powerful firms in tech — and to endure the intense public scrutiny that followed — established her as a central figure in the industry's diversity reckoning.

Building for Inclusion

After serving as interim CEO of Reddit in 2015 — a tenure marked by intense online harassment — Ellen Pao co-founded Project Include, a nonprofit that provides data-driven tools, resources, and frameworks to help technology companies build more diverse and inclusive workplaces. Project Include works with startups and established companies alike, offering practical guidance on everything from hiring practices to compensation audits to inclusive meeting culture.

As CEO of Project Include, Ellen Pao has shifted from fighting individual battles to building systemic solutions. Her memoir, Reset, documented her experiences and offered a blueprint for navigating hostile work environments. Ellen Pao's legacy is that she made it impossible for Silicon Valley to pretend its diversity problem didn't exist — and then she built an organization dedicated to solving it.