The jury in a case of gender discrimination brought by a former female partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers ruled Saturday against the plaintiff, 42-year-old executive Ellen Pao.
The case had sparked great interest in Silicon Valley and coincided with two similar charges filed by female employees at Twitter and Facebook.
The jury made up of six men and six women dismissed Pao's charges against Kleiner, one of the most influential venture capital firms in California's Silicon Valley.
Pao charged Kleiner with gender bias and retaliation in its decision to fire her in the year 2012 after she complained to workmates and management that the company had a discrimination problem.
Pao, currently acting chief executive of the social-news service Reddit, had asked for $16 million in compensation, to which were added as much as $144 million in damages and impairment, after the judge in the case determined last weekend that she had the right to seek such compensation.
The case was tried in the midst of an intense debate on the lack of gender diversity in Silicon Valley, where male talent takes precedence.
Facebook revealed last year that 69 percent of its labor force are men, similar to the situation at Google, Apple and Twitter.
The percentage of women in management positions is even smaller, according to a report by the legal firm Fenwich & West, which says that only 11 percent of executive positions are held by women in Silicon Valley's 150 largest companies.
Last week, two ex-employees of Twitter and Facebook sued their former companies for discrimination.
Tina Huang, engineer and ex-employee of Twitter, proposed bringing a class-action suit against the social network on grounds that it uses secret promotion methods that favor men.
Twitter responded that Huang resigned from the company voluntarily after it tried to convince her to stay, and said that as an organization it is committed to gender diversity.
For its part, Facebook says it has improved its diversity numbers and that the facts will show that the ex-employee and plaintiff, Chia Hong, was treated fairly. EFE
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