![]() Pao kept racking up the Ivy League degrees. Ellen majored in electrical engineering at Princeton, where both her sisters studied as well. The elder Pao, who died in 1987 when Ellen was a senior in high school, instilled in his children a commitment to academics, and each fulfilled his dreams. Her father, Young-Ping Pao, was a professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The middle child of three girls, Pao grew up in suburban New Jersey. Pao was accustomed to meeting high expectations. “I met everything in the spec,” Pao said in a 2008 interview with Fortune. John Doerr, the firm’s famed leader, sought a technical chief of staff who met precise job specifications: an engineering degree from a prestigious university, degrees in law and business, and a background in enterprise software. In the spring of 2005 Ellen Pao applied for a job at Kleiner Perkins. Despite her pedigree and accomplishments, Pao achieved no notoriety at all until her explosive allegations came to light. Fletcher thrust himself into the national debate on race relations with his fellowship program, and he has twice sued others for racial discrimination. ( Steven Rattner, a former neighbor at the Dakota, is a past investor in Fletcher’s firm Tribeca Film Festival co-founders Craig Hatkoff and Jane Rosenthal befriended him.) Pao, consistently described above all else as “quiet,” faded into the woodwork mentors adopted her because of her potential and work ethic. Fletcher for years was attracted to the limelight and courted high-profile patrons. The unfolding drama has been the buzz of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, in part because the elite of those communities surely see glimpses of themselves and their values in the Pao-Fletchers: With five Ivy League degrees between them and access to some of the most influential people in business and academic circles, the attractive interracial couple embodies the sort of bicoastal, nerdy-cool success that so many smart young people aspire to.īut they were an odd couple from the start. Then, just as Fletcher’s predicament was intensifying, Pao, 43, sued her employer, the venerable venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, for sexual discrimination, alleging that her superiors ignored her complaints of maltreatment by some male colleagues - and curtailed her career for raising the issues. The lawsuit triggered a series of events that ultimately led to the bankruptcy of one of Fletcher’s funds and investigations by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Fletcher, 46, sued the iconic Dakota apartment building, located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, accusing the board of racial discrimination after it questioned his ability to pay for an additional unit in the complex. After achieving coveted positions in the rarefied world of finance, Fletcher and Pao each filed sensational lawsuits that now jeopardize their careers, no matter the outcome. Nearly four years later much has changed for Fletcher and Pao - though not for the better. The event was infused with a powerful dose of “hope and change.” But in the span of a year beginning in the summer of 2007, Fletcher and Pao had met, married, and started a family. His friends all knew that Fletcher had for years openly dated a man, Hobart “Bo” Fowlkes, an employee of his investment firm, who helped plan the party but was not in attendance. ![]() What are the chances, he asked, that he’d be there that day with his beautiful wife and child? ![]() Fletcher’s mother, Bettye and his brother, Geoffrey, whose screenplay for the film Precious would later win an Oscar - Fletcher delivered a speech built around the theme “What are the chances?” What are the chances, he mused, that the nation would elect its first black President or that a Fletcher Fellow would read her poem at the Inauguration? He acknowledged his wife, the venture capitalist Ellen Pao, and their 6-month-old daughter, Matilda. While some of the most important people in his life looked on - Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. As evening fell Fletcher gave a toast that acknowledged the significance of the moment, for the nation and for himself. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |