Jada Pinkett Smith and Ellen Pao Red Table Talk | The 2019 MAKERS Conference

please welcome Jada pinkett-smith with Ellen Pao [Music] [Applause] [Music] what is happening this evening you beautiful women I have to tell you this is just an honor to sit here with Miss Ellen Pao this woman right here is gangster okay no one has ever called me that oh no you are let me tell you something you are the definition of gangster to me because of what you've done this woman [Music] she took on the tech world in a big way with a gender discrimination suit can you talk a little bit about that so in 2012 I had worked at one of the big venture capital firms for seven and a half years or seven years and I sued them for gender discrimination and retaliation it was a pretty big suit because nobody had ever sued one of these firms before and nobody had ever called out the behavior and and they ended up firing me I ended up going on you know taking it all the way to trial and I lost but in that process like I learned a lot I think it taught other people a lot about what's going on behind closed doors and what's acceptable and what's not acceptable yeah and I yeah and I just want to thank you because when we have the courage to make moves like that you're helping us all you know what I'm saying you're advancing and creating more opportunities for us all so I want to personally say thank you because I don't think everybody really understands what it takes like the consequence because I've been in the hot seat okay I know it can be lonely so let me let's talk about that for one second when you were going through this process how was there ever a point where you were like maybe next time I won't say anything like did you ever feel like did it ever get to a place of pressure we would just it felt like it was just too much I felt like all of the kind of retaliation and you know the cold shoulders and the and negative stuff that they put out about me about me being a poor performer about me being unlikable and all of that sharp elbows it it unfortified me like how do you know like wow I can't believe this is happening and I need to push back against it they think this is okay and I really need to not back down because who's going to do that then right did what kind of support did you have during that time it was mixed so like at work there was no support it was really hard and then but I had my family supporting me I had my good friend joy and she's me mad that I mentioned her name because she's very private so I'm just gonna mention her by first name but she was my rock I got it when you know everything I would file I went to law school with her she would read ring every time I was had some kind of like should I mention this should I not she was like my touchstone like you get very emotional and it's hard cuz you're in the middle of it but she's you know we had this thing like no collateral damage so I you know we're not gonna talk about people's kids we're not gonna talk about things that yeah you know it's we're talking about these issues at hand and we're not going to do the thing that they did which was bring everybody else into it right and she was very helpful in like I'm like as collateral damage or not is this you know help me and she was like my rock pushing me through and you know we'd have conversations at 10 o'clock at night when her kid was sleeping and my kid was sleeping and and she was just there for me and I knew like any point in time I could call her and she would you know she would just walk me through everything so it was your sister girl that was by your side right I don't think anybody's called her sister so since we're here and part of the conversation today is about how we as women can support each other right I want to know if you can just educate me for one second just in regards to what it is like and what kind of biases that you as a asian-american woman what you face because I'm hoping that as we go there's gonna be more conversation that our Asian sisters are going to be included more in these conversations that we're having in regards to the movements that are going on all right so I do want to take a minute for you to educate us all because I do think it's a lot of myths okay that needs to get busted here the fact that you know a lot of other minority groups think that you know Asians are the cherished minorities right that you're the favorite minorities right and so you're here with us I just want to hear from your perspective what what is what is your experience well I think and I proved it wrong like the there is this idea that of Asians of being very subservient we're not gonna speak up and complain which obviously I didn't really follow a wake-up call for them but there's this kind of idea of this monolithic like subservient and obedient and hardworking and smart and you know willing to do all the grunt work and not complain that that people fall into and then sometimes you have to live the stereotype in order to you know fit in because people don't want to see somebody who is not fitting that survey type because that's not who they hired or who they expect and that can be really hard there's a and and that I think is what causes people to hit into what they call the bamboo ceiling where it may be easier to get in the door but I see you as a subservient junior person and when it comes time to you know promote people I don't see you as that leader I see you as a person who's like cleaning up and doing the administrative work I see I've never even heard that the bamboo ceiling Wow okay so just to be clear it's really kind of that subservient stereotype or the dragon lady so there's that the subservience I like the lotus blossom and then there's the dragon lady who's the you know on wheels and you know not somebody that you want to work with Wow okay yeah that's deep that's deep but I got some clarity because you know let me ask you do you think that it's important as women that we I think it's important that we have these kind of conversations because you just schooled me right now right just in regards to I feel as though we as women need to understand the different backgrounds you know and considering the the different problems that we might or obstacles that we might come up against because of cultural differences or even economic differences do you think that's important for women to really learn how to support each other you know whether it's in the movement whether it's in the workplace do you think that that particular aspect is important I wish people had told me like it took me until I was in my late 30s to figure out oh there's this systemic issue and it's blocking all of us and you know the world is not this meritocracy like I had seen problems but I always thought it was me right but when you share are all these stories and I just had so many wonderful people come up to me and tell me like wow I didn't realize like I had these same things that happened to me and I thought it was me and now I know and I can either find another job or learn tactics to deal with it but until you know what you're up against it's really hard to to navigate right and you said why you were going through this discrimination suit you did not have a lot of support from did you have any support from any of the women that were in there was one woman who like they sent out an internal email talking about litigation to let everybody know because I think it was about to leak in the press and they made me sound totally crazy it was like she's suing and she had said these things and they take it out of context and they put it in and like so hold on to every email that's related to this and and she took me to her office and she showed it to me and she she was just like you know they're they're really coming after you so she gave me a heads-up but then like she never talked to me again until after the lawsuit so you know people were really scared it's like I understand it yeah it didn't make it less painful at the time like you know you go into your office these are people that you've worked with for seven years and you sit down and the person gets up and moves right right I'm like oh my god how much does have this meeting if you're leaving and then you can't get any meeting set up and people won't meet invite you to their meetings they won't the conversations die when you come into the hallway you know it's about that yeah and it's painful and but I can see this is the culture where you know I was not accepted they called me a cancer right so you know what are you're not gonna talk to that cancer because then you're you know you're going to be perceived as a problem right I was a problem that they were trying to get rid of so nobody wanted to associate with me associate with me yeah understand that I had a bit of that as well in regards to the Oscar boycott and you know I had like a red Scarlet Letter on my forehead for a while and it's extremely painful specifically when you feel as though it's like it's not just your fight it's like you're standing up for everybody you know so it can be it can be really tough yeah it can be really tough and I'm trying to figure out who it's really deep because I'm trying to figure out if you know when I think about what we need as women to get along right and to Floyd each other power right I always come up against comparative superiority right which is one of the problems or one of the systems of racism why I think racism has been put in place anyway right I think everybody's always looking for a way or reason to be better than someone else and I haven't figured if it is a problem of patriarchy or if it's just human nature right but I'm trying to figure out how we as women I I know that in my journey I've had to really check the need for comparative superiority so you know that queen bee complex that I think that can be part of what separates women right those inner dialogues that that we need to have in your in the tech world in life in general have you come across that where you'll find other women that are in your industry that feel as though they cannot associate with someone that they feel is junior to them or you know that they feel as though even might not have same education or economic status I think in in my experience it's been more like the company culture is that women are at the bottom hmm and then it's not really like I don't know if it's queen bee or more I want to distinguish myself from that group so you don't look down on me distinguish yourself from women I actually belong to right by saying negative things or but you know or and I can't tell of it but it's like I want to distinguish myself or I know that's a culture to talk badly about this person or that person and they happen to all be women and I'm just trying to fit in because I don't want people talking about me like that right yeah because I'm really trying to figure out you know in this era where we're asking men to step up in a certain manner in regards to seeing women as equal and treating and paying us appropriately I often have to think about how we as women treat each other right [Music] it's super important you know and trying to figure out how to bridge all these gaps that I see within the the world of women which is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you because I was like you know what it is it takes a gangster gals alike to go up against what you did for gender equality you know what I'm saying so you know wanting to have this conversation with you just in regards to in in how do you feel as though we as women can do more for each other in the workplace or we as women can be more supportive when someone like yourself is taking the stand that you're taking you know because we can't expect everybody to stay in there with us I don't not expect that because there's a lot of fear and I get it and there's consequences but because you've been through that experience and so have I because it a nice little email would be nice you know what I mean just like just to flow some love towards the person that is actually taking heat not only for your progress before that for their progress as well right so what would you say since you've been through that experience what would have been nice what would have been some of the nice or you know flow of power that some of your sister friends could have I flow to you during that particular time there were so many strangers who've reached out to me in that de Triana so this woman geisha ha I feel so close to her I have only met her maybe two or three times but she reached out to me why not you know nobody was talking to me like I couldn't bother my poor friend joy anymore oh she's a job she has kids but hey but she reached out she sent me this note and she's just like you know she had gone through some stuff and then she talked about that and then she she said you know often women hold on to like the mean things that people say and let the nice things slide off like Teflon and instead you need to hold on to the good things I can let the bad things slide off and that was so powerful to me because people were saying terrible things right it was you know it was all over the you know reddit it was all over and if you read the comments of any of these articles some reporters had like published my daughter's name so they you know I begged them not to and they put her name in and it was a woman reporter was part of that team too and I was like oh right and so so there's just like she just sent an email and it was just so super like meaningful to me at that time there were people who stopped me in the street and and they're just like you know you know I had this terrible experience like and you could you really you're speaking up was meaningful - yes and they will never speak up right and I don't blame them they will never speak up but it was important for them to acknowledge like the work that goes into doing this type of you know making this kind of a stand real talk yeah and and these woman were awesome yeah I have to say like there were a lot more black and brown women like I think like your experience like they have experienced similar things and they could see it right away like there was the jury had a bunch of Asian women who all voted against me and this one black woman who at the end she spoke up and she was just like I've seen this like I this is not fair and I just want to tell you why I think so and why I voted in favor of her but you know and she like did the work to stand up and just speak out and to make a statement and I was so appreciative because that was a bad day why do you think your Asian sister friends voted against you trip how you know like your sister friends in your family will turn against you right I just find it to be an interesting situation well from your perspective why do you think that might be the case I think like I think there is in the Asian culture this belief in meritocracy that if you work hard you will be rewarded for it and that the system is actually beneficial because that's the early levels it does look better right agents like you do get the jobs and you do you know get into schools and you do have what you know what appears to be a good experience you know and if you're you know young and you haven't hit that bamboo ceiling yet it does seem like that's the way the world works right and I think you know if you know if you believe in that and then you have you know a firm saying terrible things about how bad it was as a worker and how nobody liked me you kind of that fits into the mold of oh it is a meritocracy she is the problem let's just you know get her out of here yeah exactly yeah I know about that too but you know what I do want to give shout-out to those you know street soldiers I always college street soldiers the people that come up to you on the street and they they give you a pound they give you a hug they give you some love and they just go thank you you know what I mean and they they flow you that love power that little bit of love power to keep you going so I definitely want to say big up and much love to them because ya keep you going they really do yeah what kind of magic do we think happens when we actually get it right now can you think of a time when there was a woman who really went to bat for you oh I I think of like what I'm working on now project include it was I had like ran away after working at right so I worked at right at a CEO as an employee and then a CEO for a while we got rid of revenge porn and unauthorized nude photos and then we're starting to get rid of some of the really bad subreddits where people were actually harassing users and then I got fired sad and you know during that time it was like also I was in trial and it was just like this oh you were still going through a trial when you going through the reddit situation yeah so I would go I'd go to Reddit I'd go home I didn't sleep very much and I was just working right and and there was just like a lot of abuse heaped on me on reddit you know and just in general so after all that I went to Hawaii I escaped Hawaii I have a friend out there another sister girls and she and she just hosted me in my family and we just relaxed and then you know I took some time off I and then I came back and I started to talk to people about like you know mostly women like what do we what do we need to do and tack likewise problem is so pervasive and you know we're not seeing any change and like the current like path for a company to feel like they're doing the right diversity and inclusion measures is to have a 45 minute training session on unconscious bias which isn't doing anything right they and then they even go out and they do PR about it and they show the picture of the white man who gave the training and they feel all good about it and we're like this is not gonna work like what do we need to do right at the end like eight of us got together we put together a website with like I think 87 recommendations and we're just like these are the things you need to do and these are the reasons we had you know links to all of the you know all the data and all the research and all of the you know other helpful sites that were out there with all of this information and we're like we're just gonna put you know put it out there so that people can't say they don't know where to go like here's a website and it ended up being coming this whole nonprofit but it was such a good experience so I'm gonna shout out to Erica Bethany Laura why Vaughn Tracy Susan and Frieda because we were able to do this that's awesome that's awesome so have you seen change since you took that stand and yeah good it's been good like in the beginning it was really kind of like ooh people don't really understand diversity and inclusion but then I've run into people to be like I've read your whole website and I'm like oh my gosh it's like a hundred pages read the whole website really like excited about what you're doing and you know and it's really helping me in my company and you know two years later I'm working with CEOs now of startups and you know and they get it they're like I know I need to change my company and I know I need to hire more black and brown people and I want to hire more women and I know I need to do that now because if I wait until it's you know 2040 and there are more people of color than white people I'm totally screwed so they're getting it like they're getting like that there's a real reason to do it but you know most of them also get that there's a fairness reason but they feel a business imperative now like it's actually real for them and they're willing to you know they're willing to take risks and they're willing to do things that might not work it's not a check the Box anymore right that's awesome I think did our timer go out is that a zero does that mean it's time for a Q&A I try to figure out how to read this little table that they have down here and I don't see any numbers on his despise erosion for Q&A that it says time for Q&A all right let's have a QA do we have microphones out there for people oh there's a mic right there while somebody is about to go to that microphone I'm about to ask you something kind of ignorant okay I find that hard to believe I think it well because I was sitting with my friend today and I was watching some of your videos and I can't remember what institution it was but it was so great it was a it was a group of Asian students I believe and they were considering themselves people of color cuz when I talk about people of color I'm talking about everybody I'm talking about everybody Native Americans Latins blacks everybody Asians so my friend was like oh my goodness they're calling themselves people of color and I was like well yeah they consider themselves if you're not white then your person of color but here's the question what color [Laughter] at least I think of myself as yellow okay got it but traditional stereotype but also you know it's it's a distinguishing color dad um but I think it's like I think it should be bonding I hope for other people like I feel very much connected with you know black people and with Latin next people because we've all had this shared experience of unfairness yeah and while you know and Laur always says like it's not the oppression Olympics we don't have to compare that's real talk yeah but I do think there is this you know there is a lot where you know some people lump Asians together with whites and that drives me bonkers right it's you know we have different experiences and I think it drives a wedge between Asians and black people and Latin X people and we should all be working together like change isn't gonna come if we're working separately right and I think that's including via our white sisters too when you know cuz we all need each other and that's really the bottom line you know and it's really just creating this nation of womanhood real talk hey you ready to ask a question she knows me Stephanie Lampkin founder and CEO of blend or so one thing Ellen hasn't mentioned is she's been in the investor seat k-pork capital so my question is actually let me sit back I've realized in being in the DNI space more than anything the privilege that I do possess as being cisgender as coming from a family with a positive socio-economic background and so it's changed the way that I think about my own bias against people who aren't as privileged how do you personally combat your own bias and recognize your own privilege as you're evaluating who you invest in who you mentor and who you take the time to give access to your resources so I am now investing on my own so I'm full-time at project include and so I ain jalut best um it is hard it's it's you know I I I try to think about my portfolio and if anything I try to invest so that it's more diversity oriented so that there is more and I'm actually going to share my stats at some point hopefully in the next few weeks on like the percentage because I think more than half are women and more than half are people of color so I'm about that like I look at my portfolio and I've marked you know the different things and periodically I'll and see like who am i investing in am i overlooking people I will work with funders that I think are investing in diverse portfolios so I'm actually an investor in Arlen Hamilton's backstage capital who's awesome and I think another investor who's done great at investing in people from under represented backgrounds is Charles Hudson a precursor venture so I'm also an investor there and then I you know and then I look at their their pipeline I'm not an active person in terms of trying to find entrepreneurs I'm actually a little bit lazy because I have this other full-time job and then I'm a mom so I'm not the most disciplined but I try to work with funds that are good at that and it is not perfect and I know I can do better but I'm I'm really trying and I'm looking at my stats periodically and then I'm also trying to push other firms to do the same but it yeah it's so hard but you really just have to look at the numbers and really push where you can I really like you [Applause] hey thank you first of all Jada I just want to say respect and because I'm a teacher I just want to tell you there are no ignorant questions thank you and for Ellen I have a question specifically about project inclusion in terms of women who are older so for example I was a stay-at-home mom the reason I'm here right now is because my daughter earned her Gulf Girl Scout Gold Award and we were invited to participate in makers because futures email shirt on that's right so I've got two of them they're both Girl Scout Gold Award recipients and I was really proud to be at home up with them and you know 18 years I raised them but then you know got a divorce went back to school got my master's degree and I'm gonna be 50 in July and and I know I got to own it but I'm trying to build a career at 49 so any suggestions for you know project inclusion you know white yeah gender says woman and all that but I need to earn a living yeah how can i connect or any suggestions there is a startup that is looking at reintroducing mostly moms to the workforce I can't remember off the top of my head what it's called I know mother coders arts right so I would check out their website and and connect with them I think you know you can look at websites and just see and this is you know people from all groups do this to see like what pictures do they have what do the people look like on their teams and you know some startups are better than others at hiring across all age groups and you can really try to find the companies which are more open to people who are older but there is definitely an age bias and it is real and you know what you're feeling is not tied to you specifically so I hope you can you know realize that and just try to find a place where they are less bias on the places that you might want to avoid I'm sorry I wish I had a good answer but it's not it's just hard out there yeah yes there you go do we have any other questions no one oh there we go come on mama come on down Oh letting each other go okay so one of the things I think that I've always struggled with with intersectionality is how do i as a female but still from a place of privilege kind of get people talking like I think particularly working in the tech sector there are large groups of people of color already and they seem to kind of have their own community and I don't know how to ask them to open up and be vulnerable with us or get into the conversation to feel like we can help raise them up I think that I feel like an outsider to them and I don't know how to not feel intrusive there's an awesome book for you um it's youma a luo's and I hope I didn't say her name and quickly so you want to talk about race and she really breaks down all of these different behaviors and all the different things that might help you understand without you know trying to ask people to be vulnerable to you she's taking her vulnerability and put it all on the page and I think that's an amazing book to start with and that will give you some ideas on you know what else you can do it's amazing let me check that thank you hi my name is Susan I'm with Sleep Number Mike Cruz right there I love what I'm seeing on stage right now and even just in your sharing your story and talking about women of all races coming together and that's not something that we see a lot and especially in our companies like people kind of get in their clusters what are your kind of tips for encouraging women of all shades to come together and how have you kind of brought that up to life in in your experience I think sometimes it's just inviting people like a lot of it starts one-on-one like Erica Joy Baker I've saw her on Twitter and we kind of followed each other and we supported each other on Twitter and then one day I just jammed her I'm like I would love to meet you and she's like let's get a drink at the Ferry Building and like I'm there or maybe she reached out to me I can't remember but it was like you know it's just kind of organically one one at a time and then if you start talking about you know I really wish we could bring our groups together then you have somebody to work with and it's and it's not this cold start and I think it really does come from like one-on-one people getting to know each other better and trusting each other that's really good like how to create a bridge just starting with a one-on-one relationship good evening thank you she's my sister girl now all right good evening my name is Regina Wilson I just want to I definitely won't give a shout-out to Jada love you girl thank you I come from the job that I have is built on exclusion and it's nationwide my job is male-dominated and it is a job that is systematically created to keep out people of color and women and with that in mind I try and get help from every and anybody to be able to change because it's so tradition in a culture of a department which is the fire department and and from that we have such a struggle with it and then today I gave some statistics that women are only four percent nationwide women represent it so how do we continue because we continue to struggle in battle to break free and getting break those traditions and customs but you're dealing with boys club and a fragment allottee how do i how do we break through there systemic you know oppressed type of departments across the country that doesn't give us a fair opportunity how do you think we can be able to break through to these people that's generationally taught to be that way well I wish I had an easy answers I mean thank you for doing the work that you're doing [Music] are there people that you know who are interested in doing the same thing it is but we're outnumbered like my job is 70% white so it's hard to push back and forth like you talked about women you have the women that try to get along so there's women it's 87 of us but it's really probably only a good 30 of us that stick together so it's hard to be able to gather those groups together so there are people like we have to sue in order to make significant changes so how do we chip away at it you know we don't want to sue yeah but we have not they got a hundred million dollar spanking but how do you not how do you change those mindsets to help people to see that it's just a job like it's not you know the face of bravery is a woman to you know hard I guess sometimes it's by telling stories and I do think that if you don't want to sue the press can be a good outlet people are afraid they they aspire to be good people and they aspire to be fair and they don't aspire to be sexist it just or racist it just happens that way and if you can get shed some light into public light and have other people say hey this actually isn't right and that's you know I lost my litigation but the you know but when the light shone on the things that were happening people were just like this is not acceptable and if you can figure out a way to you know tell your story or have other women tell their stories with you often it takes like three or four people and to find a trusted reporter or to do it on your own it can be very powerful but I would try to talk to somebody who is in you know in public relations before you did that to really come up with a strategy and come up with a plan and frankly like to think about well can I be fired and you know what would I do do I have enough money saved and you know can I find another job and that sometimes is unfortunately something that holds a lot of people back from from sharing their stories and experiences thank you thank you I wish we had time it's been 0-0 for longest and they said that was the last question oh sorry I'm sorry can we take one more it'll be a good one I promise okay my name is Corey I'm here representing the trans community I'm I'm interested in how you include trans women and men with what you do so project include part of what we do is we work with companies to survey their employees so we we survey every single one of their employees to figure out what their population of all different categories including transgender people employees is and we really think that there's you know a lot of the work on kind of bringing light to what's going on in tech has been focused on binary gender and we really want to try to push things beyond that where you know it's not public yet but we've done a survey where you know it shows that the significant percentage of people are confused on binary and this whole push to be 50/50 it doesn't make sense to me like you're pushing to be 50/50 in a world that is not 50/50 and I just talked to the head of glad it was like you know 40 percent of people in you know whatever generation Gen Z or you know the the in the younger population thinks of themselves as non-binary or non-conforming and I think that's a message that gets lost in a lot of the changes that people are trying to make and so part of what we plan to do is we're releasing a report now saying it out loud in public so I really have to do it but to to show like there is a segment of people who are who are non-binary and we need to start thinking about how we treat them in our businesses and in our companies and well you know you're not going to go out and try to find out who they are if you can make you know an all gender bathroom or you know there are things that you can do to make it more comfortable without forcing people to state their genders and gender identities or to share their sexual orientation which people aren't comfortable doing so like what are things that you can do and to try to push companies to think beyond binary gender [Music] well everyone [Applause] thank you for coming to hang out with us I really appreciate it Ellen miss gangsta do you have anything to say before we leave I felt like completely unprepared for this and just like I trust Jada her show so awesome so watch her show on read.table data on Facebook it is awesome and then you have been a remarkable audience so this has been the most fun that I've had in a long time so thank you thanks guys [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: MAKERS

Views: 113,259

Rating: 4.7735848 out of 5

Keywords: Jada Pinkett, Red Table Talk, Ellen Pao, women's issues, women, MAKERS Women, #MAKERSConference, YT

Id: nIWwXzHPPsc

Length: 42min 18sec (2538 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 07 2019