Greetings from What is California? HQ, where this week we welcome Ellen Pao, the co-founder and CEO of Project Include, a San Francisco-based nonprofit with a mission of improving diversity in the tech industry.
Ellen has been in the vanguard of Silicon Valley leadership and policy for much of the last 20 years. She is particularly well-known for her time as the CEO of Reddit, a short and turbulent and controversial but impactful term where she went on the offensive against trolls, harassment, revenge porn and other toxic internet culture. Her efforts to combat abuse and harassment provided an early look at the kinds of brutal online moderation wars and troll culture that we’ve seen explode over the last five or six years.
Ellen also filed a landmark gender discrimination suit against her former employer, the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, back in 2012—five years before the dawn of the #MeToo era. She lost the lawsuit but started a conversation about sexism, racism, and other forms of bias and discrimination that plague Silicon Valley—and the tech industry more broadly—to this day.
I wanted to talk to Ellen about her California story as well as the role Silicon Valley plays in the bigger California story and the California imagination. We covered her early days here; she went to Princeton and Harvard Law and has a Harvard MBA, but just like thousands of Californians before her, her own imagination was captured by the Golden Gate Bridge—which she drove over while moving to the city she calls home to this day.
We hear about that as well as how she got drawn into the tech industry. She tells us about what has deteriorated as well as what has improved about online culture since she launched her career. And of course she fills us in on her favorite Californian.
Heads up: This episode was taped over the summer, well before Elon Musk closed his deal to purchase Twitter on Oct. 27. We mercifully did not need to dwell on the implications there. So, behold: Your Elon-free zone! (At least for this week.)
Thanks for listening! Keep your eye on the bear! 🐻 ❤️
Episode Notes
@ekp - Ellen Pao on Twitter
Project Include - home page
“The Reddit Revolt That Led to Ellen Pao’s Resignation,” by Alex Abad-Santos, Vox
“Adam Neumann’s $350 million comeback is a ‘slap in the face’ to female founders and founders of color,” by Emma Hinchcliff and Paige McGlauflin
“Jada Pinkett Smith and Ellen Pao - Red Table Talk” - YouTube
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Produced, hosted and edited by Stu VanAirsdale
Theme music: Sounds Supreme
Twitter: @WhatCalifornia
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Email: hello@whatiscalifornia.com
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