Pao graduated with an A.B. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1991 after completing an 143-page-long senior thesis titled "Computer Databases and Business: An Analysis of Informational Privacy." Immediately after, she attended Harvard Law School, where she earned a Juris Doctor in 1994. After two years of working, Pao returned to attend Harvard Business School, where she received an MBA in 1998. From 1994 to 1996, Pao worked as a corporate attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. In 1998, Pao worked at WebTV. Pao worked at several companies in Silicon Valley including BEA Systems as Senior Director of Corporate Business Development from 2001 until 2005. In 2005, Pao joined Kleiner Perkins, an established venture capital firm in San Francisco, as technical chief of staff for John Doerr, a senior partner, a job that required degrees in engineering, law, and business and experience in enterprise software. In 2007 she was appointed a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute on the recommendation of Doerr, a trustee. Also in 2007, she became a junior investing partner with Ted Schlein as her boss. While at Kleiner Perkins, Pao led the company's expansion into China. After several years with Schlein's team, Pao was passed over for a senior partner position. According to Pao, she had the job title of junior partner from her date of hiring and was promised an opportunity to move into an investing role. Doerr, who has expressed awareness of what he considers a gender gap at venture capital firms, mentored Pao, liberally providing feedback, but, in the end, agreed with the other senior partners who had made negative evaluations of her work at the firm. It was Pao's contention, in her suit for gender discrimination, that men with similar profiles were, nevertheless, promoted. On May 10, 2012, Pao filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against her employer. The lawsuit alleged workplace retaliation by a male junior partner, resulting from his and Pao's romantic affair. She continued to work at the firm until October 1. Pao claimed that she was terminated abruptly while Kleiner Perkins claimed that she was given a month to accept a paid five-month transition to an operating role. Pao's lawyer said she was fired in retaliation for her lawsuit and amended the complaint to add that cause of action. The firm said Pao was terminated for performance reasons unrelated to the lawsuit. On March 27, 2015, the jury decided the case in favor of the defendant on all counts.