Ellen Pao could have made $2.6 million as a senior partner

An earlier version of this story gave an inaccurate amount for the possible annual salary Ellen Pao might have earned as a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins.

SAN FRANCISCO — The very large sums of money at stake for those working at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins were discussed on the stand Thursday in the third day of a gender discrimination case that has Silicon Valley agog.

Ellen Pao, a former junior partner, is suing the well-known venture capital firm for $16 million in back pay and future wage losses after, she says, she was dismissed from her position in October 2012.

In 2011, Pao made more than $500,000, Kleiner attorney Lynne Hermle said.

Junior partners get paid a salary as well as bonuses. Senior, or general partners, get profits from Kleiner's investments, Kleiner Perkins' chief financial officer, Susan ‪Biglieri‬ said from the stand.

If Pao had been promoted to senior partner, like the three male counterparts hired around the same time as her, she could have made as much as $2.6 million a year.

‪Biglieri‬ confirmed that senior partners at the VC firm, which funds early-stage companies, make between three and five times what junior partners do.

Pao became the CEO of Reddit, a popular news aggregation site, in November. Her salary there has not been reported.

Discrimination alleged

Pao's complaint asserts that at Kleiner Perkins she was denied promotion, wages and profits because she was a woman, and that she and other women were excluded from business meetings and opportunities, and from managerial functions because they were female.

The trial is of great interest to the technology industry because of rising concerns over the lack of women, African Americans and Hispanics in Silicon Valley in positions of power and influence.

Each day reporters from multiple media and technology sites write and Tweet from the courtroom, detailing the allegations and revelations made.

Kleiner Perkins general partner Ted Schlein took the stand in the afternoon. He became her manager in 2009.

Several times he said Pao was difficult to get along with, saying at one point, "Ellen usually had issues with junior partners, and sometimes senior partners."

Alan Exelrod, one of Pao's lawyers, went over a crucial 2011 performance review of Pao that Schlein helped put together, which her complaint characterized as "biased."

Exelrod introduced as evidence several iterations of the review, showing that it had grown progressively less positive with each revision.

During the afternoon's proceedings, details also emerged about a 2011 flight that Pao, Schlein and others took in a private jet. During the trip, Pao alleges, she was subjected to discussion of porn stars and visits to the Playboy Mansion, and senior staff present did nothing to bring the discussion around to more appropriate topics.

Exelrod asked about the plane ride, during which Dan Rosensweig, whose company Chegg Kleiner Perkins had invested in, spent time talking about "matters relating to porn stars and Playboy bunnies," in Exelrod's words.

Schlein said that he recalled, "Dan telling me he met Christie Hefner at the Playboy Mansion."

"Dan is a boisterous type, outgoing," Schlein said.

When Exelrod asked if Schlein remembered Rosensweig talking about going to a Victoria's Secret lingerie show, he replied, "I don't remember."

When Exelrod asked if he'd done anything to try to get Rosensweig to end the conversation, Schlein testified, "I don't remember trying to stop it."