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Comment by conorh | Hacker News Reader

Admittedly I'm not unbiased, having done work for KPCB (although I know nothing about this case). However, I am extremely disappointed reading the comments in this thread and in the media. People seem ready to jump to conclusions and crucify having only heard one side of the story, I suppose that makes for great stories in the media, but why not let the court case play out and hear both sides first?

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that certainly seems sensible on the surface, but I have to say, even if every single thing Pao said is made up, the fact that they held an dinner party with Vice President of the United States as the guest of honor and did not invite a single female partner is pretty hard to explain in any sort of reasonable fashion

Aha, see here you have extrapolated from the framing in the media headlines (and the plaintiff), without actually looking at any context. So to look at what you just said and present it differently: (note: I'm not coming down on either side of this, just presenting the other side, see [1])

1. He was not the Vice President of the United States then. He is (and was then) a KPCB partner.

2. He was not the guest of honor, this was a dinner party at his apartment for the 10 people that could fit. Apparently he is fond of hosting dinners there and does many of them. At this event there were only two KPCB partners.

Is it a stretch to imagine that two out of all the partners at KPCB for this particular dinner might not include a female partner?

Also in Chien's testimony [2]:

Chien called the allegations in Pao’s lawsuit — including that he had declined to invite women to the Al Gore dinner because women “kill the buzz” — “hurtful and untrue,” and denied saying anything like that. Kleiner’s attorneys also showed multiple emails where Chien invited Pao to join meetings and business discussions she was interested in.

[1] http://www.law360.com/articles/625265/kleiner-partner-held-a...

[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2015/02/25/kleiner-per...

You must be new here. The presumption of innocence died a long time ago. Any accusations made publicly about these sorts of issues are prima facie true.

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