What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - The Ellen Pao Effect
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 December 2017
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s If Then, Slate’s April Glaser talks with Ellen Pao about sexism in Silicon Valley and why the tech industry hasn’t experienced the same fallout over accusations of sexual harassment and assault as the media and entertainment business. Pao discusses what gives her hope for tech and describes what she’s witnessed as CEO and founder of Project Include, a nonprofit organization dedicated to diversity in tech. They also discuss her time as interim CEO of Reddit and what platforms should do to combat hate speech and harassment on their sites.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to IfThed, the show about how technology is changing our lives and our future. |
| 0:10.7 | I'm April Glazer. |
| 0:24.1 | Hey everyone, welcome to If Then. |
| 0:30.2 | We're coming to you from Slate and Future Tense, a partnership between Slate, Arizona State University, and New America. |
| 0:37.0 | We're recording this on the afternoon of Tuesday, December 5th, and sadly, Will is not with us today. He's fine, but he does live in Santa |
| 0:39.3 | Barbara, and that whole area is dealing with a significant fire at the moment. We hope everyone |
| 0:44.2 | stay safe, and we look forward to having him back next week, when the power's back on. |
| 0:49.0 | So even without Will, we have a great show today. Our guest is Ellen Powell. She is the founder and CEO of Project Include, a nonprofit org dedicated to diversity in tech. You may remember her highly publicized gender discrimination lawsuit in 2015 against her former VC employers. Before that, I want to let y'all know that for our next show, we have Tim Wu joining |
| 1:12.2 | us to discuss net neutrality ahead of the major vote at the FCC about whether or not the net |
| 1:18.0 | neutrality rules will be rescinded. Tim Wu actually coined the term net neutrality, and we are |
| 1:22.8 | very excited to have him join us. But on today's show, I'm really excited to speak with Ellen Powell. |
| 1:28.7 | And for our listeners who are less familiar with her case and for the larger problem of sexism |
| 1:32.7 | and gender discrimination in tech, which is an issue I've thought a lot about and written a lot |
| 1:37.0 | about, I've prepared something to help set the stage. Men at the top are falling, everywhere. |
| 1:44.0 | From Matt Lauer to Kevin Spaceyy to bill o'reilly to representative |
| 1:48.1 | john conyers not to mention Travis calnick the former uber CEO who once nicknamed the right hail company |
| 1:54.5 | boober because of the attention from women his status attracted just as in hollywood in the media |
| 2:00.1 | men in the technology industry who either |
| 2:02.3 | presided over an appropriate workplace cultures or who themselves have been accused of sexual |
| 2:06.6 | misconduct are being called to account right now. Racism and sexism have long found a home in |
| 2:12.3 | Silicon Valley, despite the rich history of women and underrepresented minorities' |
| 2:16.1 | contributions to tech. |
... |
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