Pao had claimed that Kleiner Perkins did not promote her because she is female and eventually fired her for complaining about it. One juror said that the jury’s decision was at least partially based on the fact that Pao’s reviews at the firm deteriorated over time. He also said that the witnesses more or less bore out Kleiner Perkins’s story.
The case attracted a lot of attention because female venture capitalists are notoriously scarce. One law professor commented that, despite the Kleiner Perkins’s win, the stories that Pao’s lawsuit unearthed about the venture capital firm nevertheless damaged its reputation.