Ellen Pao, who sued Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins for gender discrimination for not promoting her and then firing her for complaining, has officially given up.
Pao lost her highly publicized case earlier this year and mulled an appeal. But now she has thrown in the towel, and is thus on the hook for Kleiner Perkins’s attorneys’ fees, some $275,966 plus interest.
“It is time to move on,” Pao said in a statement. “I look forward to continuing the conversation about workplace equality and to building great companies in the technology industry.
“I cannot afford the risk of even more costs to fight against a firm with tremendous financial resources and massive legal and PR armies,”
In July, Pao was forced out as interim CEO of Reddit after she dismissed a popular director. She remains as an adviser to Reddit until the end of the year. She said she will continue to seek opportunities in technology and writing.
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