Speaker 1: In the spring of Kelly Ellis arrived for her first
Speaker 1: day of work at Google. I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of people um back then and still now, consider Google
Speaker 1: to be kind of a dream job. You always hear
Speaker 1: about them in the news having all of these amazing perks,
Speaker 1: and you see the pictures of like the nap pods
Speaker 1: and the gym and all the food and everything. Kelly
Speaker 1: was twenty five at the time, and she'd worked hard
Speaker 1: to get there. She had the degree a minor and
Speaker 1: computer science in college, and she had the experience four
Speaker 1: years as a software engineer. Like every new hire, she
Speaker 1: was given a colorful baseball cap with a propeller on it,
Speaker 1: called a Noogler hat. Then she was whisked through orientation.
Speaker 1: I was excited. Um, it was like a lot of information.
Speaker 1: It was a lot to take in, but I was like,
Speaker 1: this is going to be great. As one of Google's
Speaker 1: twenty thousand or so employees at the time, Kelly dove
Speaker 1: into the work, but it wasn't long before she started
Speaker 1: noticing things that didn't sit well with her little hints
Speaker 1: about salaries at Google, it seemed like her male colleagues
Speaker 1: were making more money. I remember talking to other women
Speaker 1: engineers about their similar frustrations. I think I just didn't
Speaker 1: want to believe that Google could be evil. When it
Speaker 1: comes down to it, Kelly isn't at Google anymore. When
Speaker 1: she left, her plan was to put her experience behind
Speaker 1: her and move on with her career. And that's just
Speaker 1: what she did until other people, including the government, started
Speaker 1: seeing the same red flags. Now Kelly finds herself in
Speaker 1: a high profile battle against one of the largest companies
Speaker 1: in the world. She's suing Google for discrimination. Hi. I'm
Speaker 1: Akio and I'm Ellen Hewittt. And this week on Decrypted,
Speaker 1: we're taking a look at pay equity at one of
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley's most celebrated companies. Kelly Ellis and three other
Speaker 1: women are suing Google, and they're hoping to expand their
Speaker 1: lawsuit into a class action case on behalf of thousands
Speaker 1: of women who worked for the company. We partnered up
Speaker 1: with The Revealed Podcasts from the Center for Investigative Reporting
Speaker 1: and PRX to bring you this episode today Stay with us.
Speaker 1: Kelly is on her second job since she left Google.
Speaker 1: She works out of Oakland for a tech startup, and
Speaker 1: we recently caught up over lunch. Hey, Hey, nice to
Speaker 1: see you good, to see you good. I've been here
Speaker 1: for lunch before. I haven't either. I've been following Kelly
Speaker 1: on Twitter for years, way before this lawsuit started, because
Speaker 1: she's been so vocal about her experience as a woman
Speaker 1: in tech. She has a tiny old septum ring in
Speaker 1: her nose and Where's glasses that she nudges with the
Speaker 1: back of her hand. You want to do anything besides
Speaker 1: the water. I'm surprised by how approachable she is in person,
Speaker 1: because she's pretty salty online. Aki and I first met
Speaker 1: Kelly at her lawyer's office and she talked to us
Speaker 1: about her time at Google. She says that she started
Speaker 1: seeing the warning signs almost immediately when she learned she'd
Speaker 1: be working with what's called front end code. And that
Speaker 1: was really really surprising to me because it was really
Speaker 1: different from what I had been doing before. I would
Speaker 1: say a lot of people in the software world looked
Speaker 1: at front end engineering as something that like, you didn't
Speaker 1: need a degree to do. This is an important distinction
Speaker 1: in software engineering. Front End coding, which Kelly was assigned to,
Speaker 1: focuses on what the consumer sees in their browser. Back
Speaker 1: End coding interacts with the plumbing, like servers and databases,
Speaker 1: and that's what Kelly had done before she came to Google,
Speaker 1: and I very quickly noticed that that was where all
Speaker 1: of my women colleagues were working, was in front of engineering.
Speaker 1: So I was like, that's kind of annoying. But at
Speaker 1: the same time I was still like, well, I'm at Google, though.
Speaker 1: You know, at Google everyone has a level, starting at
Speaker 1: level one for interns and hourly workers, up to level
Speaker 1: ten or higher for top executives. The higher you are,
Speaker 1: the more you tend to get paid, and Kelly started
Speaker 1: to suspect that she was hired at the wrong level.
Speaker 1: I had had another software engineer joined my same team
Speaker 1: the week after I did, and he and I both
Speaker 1: graduated in the same year, but he was level four
Speaker 1: when I was level three. On top of that, there
Speaker 1: was a whole group of new grads straight out of
Speaker 1: college who joined a couple of months after Kelly. They
Speaker 1: were all starting at the same level that I who
Speaker 1: was at, and that was when I was like, this
Speaker 1: feels wrong. But when I would ask people about it,
Speaker 1: they would say, well, you know, we sometimes downslop people
Speaker 1: and then we'll just correct it come promotion time. Kelly
Speaker 1: applied for promotion. She says the committee reviewing her application
Speaker 1: agreed she was doing the work of a level four,
Speaker 1: but they didn't promote her because she hadn't been at
Speaker 1: Google long enough to show an upward trajectory. And that
Speaker 1: was when I realized, like that I was always going
Speaker 1: to be playing catch up because like by the time
Speaker 1: that I was going for promotion from four to five,
Speaker 1: like the people who were four were already at level five.
Speaker 1: So I was frustrated, but I was still like, well,
Speaker 1: it's still Google, you know. Um, I don't think I
Speaker 1: considered quitting. Did you even talk about that with a
Speaker 1: man issure or maybe like an hr rep And not
Speaker 1: with an hr rep but with managers? And again I
Speaker 1: was just sort of told like trust the system, Like
Speaker 1: it didn't seem like there was any remedy. Kelly later
Speaker 1: did get promoted twice and was able to move into
Speaker 1: a back end engineering team, but after four years, she
Speaker 1: quit to go work for a smaller company where she
Speaker 1: felt she'd have more opportunities to grow. She tried to
Speaker 1: put her experiences at Google behind her. I kind of
Speaker 1: always felt like, yes, this probably has something to do
Speaker 1: with my gender, but I like fell through the cracks somehow,
Speaker 1: you know, and my case isn't typical. Three years later,
Speaker 1: in Kelly was browsing the news online when she saw
Speaker 1: an article about a government investigation into Google. In a
Speaker 1: court hearing, a lawyer with the Department of Labor said
Speaker 1: that they had found evidence of systemic compensation disparities at
Speaker 1: the company. I mean, I was like, but I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: like now this is getting real. Um, And I read
Speaker 1: the article and I was like, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: Learning about the government's investigation made Kelly see her experience
Speaker 1: in a different light. Around the same time, a San
Speaker 1: Francisco lawyer named Jim Bimberg read about the same investigation.
Speaker 1: Jim's a lawyer at the firm aut Schuler Burson, and
Speaker 1: he specializes in workplace discrimination cases. He remembers how struck
Speaker 1: he was by the statistical claims cited by the Department
Speaker 1: of Labor about the alleged difference in what Google paid
Speaker 1: women and what it paid men. The government found a
Speaker 1: gap so significant that it was incredibly unlikely for it
Speaker 1: to have happened by chance, basically about one and one
Speaker 1: hundred million. Jim compares it to a coin toss. So
Speaker 1: if I flip a coin, there's a one in two
Speaker 1: chance that it will be heads. If I flip a
Speaker 1: coin a thousand times and it's only had once out
Speaker 1: of a thousand times, well that's a lot more suspicious
Speaker 1: than if it's once out of two times. Jim discussed
Speaker 1: the government's findings with a couple other lawyers, and they
Speaker 1: decided to ask former and current Google employees to get
Speaker 1: in touch if they were interested in talking. We put
Speaker 1: a post on the internet and didn't necessarily think we
Speaker 1: would get much of a response, but we got called
Speaker 1: about who said, yeah, it's terrible women are paid less
Speaker 1: and then for the same work. Kelly was one of
Speaker 1: the women who saw Jim's post. She filled out an
Speaker 1: online form and then met Jim and his colleagues to
Speaker 1: tell her story in person, and she heard the other
Speaker 1: women's stories too. I felt that I was finally realizing
Speaker 1: that this wasn't a well intended accident. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that they set out to discriminate against women, but
Speaker 1: I fully believe that they know about the problem and
Speaker 1: decided not to fix it. Kelly agreed to be a
Speaker 1: named plaintiff, along with two other women represented by Jim.
Speaker 1: The three women filed a lawsuit in September. In the complaint,
Speaker 1: they said that Google pays women less than men for
Speaker 1: equal or similar work. They also said that the company
Speaker 1: puts women on career paths with lower pace ceilings. The
Speaker 1: lawsuit made international news Welcome back Alphabet investors just storting
Speaker 1: shaking off concerns over the gender discrimination lawsuit filed against
Speaker 1: Google yesterday. According to lawsuit accuses Google of paid discrimination
Speaker 1: against women. Three women who used to work for Google
Speaker 1: file the suit yesterday. They claimed the tech join Google
Speaker 1: the line our request for an interview, but the company
Speaker 1: has denied the allegations detailed in the lawsuit. The company
Speaker 1: published a blog post last month that addressed pay equity
Speaker 1: and the results are very different from the government's findings
Speaker 1: that we told you about earlier. Google said it reviewed
Speaker 1: the salaries of of its workforce. It excluded the jobs
Speaker 1: that it said weren't held by enough workers for the
Speaker 1: company to run a reliable analysis. For the job categories
Speaker 1: it examined. Google says it found a pay gap among
Speaker 1: a tiny group of workers. The company says it has
Speaker 1: since closed that gap. Hey good, Welcome to the Superior Court.
Speaker 1: Just the other week, the latest hearing in Kelly's lawsuit
Speaker 1: took place in San Francisco. I met up with Jim,
Speaker 1: the lawyer, outside the courthouse. Jim has big plans for
Speaker 1: the lawsuit. He wants it to be a class action case.
Speaker 1: Today's here ring is to discuss the number of jobs
Speaker 1: that the proposed class action would cover. Thank you, good
Speaker 1: morning please. Jim's team argues that thirty different jobs should
Speaker 1: be included. Google's lawyers argue for a smaller number. The
Speaker 1: judge Mary Wiss rules in favor of Kelly and the
Speaker 1: other plaintiffs. I catch up with Kelly afterwards. Hey, so
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was it good? Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1: And how does it feel to you a personally? Um? Good?
Speaker 1: I mean it just feels kind of like another step
Speaker 1: in the journey. You know, There's there's a lot more
Speaker 1: to go, and so it's not like it feels like
Speaker 1: a victory really, but it was a the result that
Speaker 1: we're hoping for. And I have to get to work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go back to work. YEA. Pursuing this
Speaker 1: case hasn't come without its costs. Because of how vocal
Speaker 1: she's been on gender issues. Kelly's faced a lot of
Speaker 1: online harassment over the years, and the lawsuit elevated her
Speaker 1: profile even more. What are the kind of things that
Speaker 1: the online trolls say to you? I mean, it's anything
Speaker 1: from you know, the wage gap isn't real, get back
Speaker 1: in the kitchen and make me a sandwich, to like
Speaker 1: you deserve to be raped, to teach you a lesson about,
Speaker 1: you know, going after tech companies because you couldn't cut
Speaker 1: it as an engineer. Recently, one of the men who
Speaker 1: threatened her online got ahold of her phone number and
Speaker 1: started calling her. When she told him to stop, he
Speaker 1: told Kelly that he was in her neighborhood and mentioned
Speaker 1: a restaurant on her block. She filed a restraining order
Speaker 1: against him. But despite all of that, she says she
Speaker 1: still doesn't regret speaking up and so like lucky to
Speaker 1: have had all the opportunities UM that landed me in
Speaker 1: this career. A lot of that comes from my privilege,
Speaker 1: and I really want other people to have the opportunity
Speaker 1: because I do think that like technology is the future
Speaker 1: of the economy, and I wanted to be available to
Speaker 1: everyone and for everyone to have the chance to succeed.
Speaker 1: UM and if you know entire groups of people are
Speaker 1: being compensated unfairly or not given the same opportunities because
Speaker 1: of factors that they can't help, then that's not the
Speaker 1: kind of industry I want to be in. For now,
Speaker 1: Kelly's trying to live her life as normally as possible,
Speaker 1: going to work, hanging out with friends as she waits
Speaker 1: for the suit to move forward. Jim expects to file
Speaker 1: a motion on her behalf early next year to get
Speaker 1: the case certified as a class action suit. If approved,
Speaker 1: that would open it up to thousands of women who've
Speaker 1: worked at Google. And that's it for this week's episode
Speaker 1: of Decrypted. Thanks for listening. Are you a woman in
Speaker 1: the tech industry. We'd love to hear your story. You
Speaker 1: can send us an email at Decrypted at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at Ellen Hewitt, and I'm at aki
Speaker 1: Itto seven. Please consider leaving us a rating and a
Speaker 1: review on Apple Podcasts or any of your favorite podcasts apps.
Speaker 1: It really helps us find new listeners. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: produced in collaboration with the Reveal podcast from the Center
Speaker 1: for Investigative Reporting and pr X. Thank you to our producers,
Speaker 1: Pia Getkari Magnus Hendrickson and Liz Smith, as well as
Speaker 1: Taki Telenitas, Katherine Muskowski, Kevin Sullivan, Jim Briggs, Fernando Aruda
Speaker 1: and Buenda Josa from the team at Reveal. Francesco Leavie
Speaker 1: is head of Boomberg Podcasts. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: M m hm