a recent driver of this discussion is that ellen powell versus kleiner perkins lawsuit that powell sueder former employer for gender discrimination argue that the vc firm did not promote her because she's a woman. she lost that case but it did generate a lot of top. the trade group, which was just formed in december, will tail a plan at the white house swrout lining steps for diversity. maybe better human resources policies and more studies measuring diversity. the numbers are not too good. according to a 2011 study by dow jones only 1% of vc partners are african-american and less hand 1% are latino while a ba bson college study said the numbers went down from 10% to 6% in 2014. a silicon valley valley husband and wife are announcing a pledge of $40 million during the neck three years, two initiatives dedicated to gives women and underrepresented minorities more opportunities at becoming entrepreneurs. all of this is happening at the first ever white house demo day, it's happening wherein straighters will be featured from across america. a pretty big stage we are talking about here. >>

emily: have you been following the ellen pao versus kleiner perkins trial? facebook and twitter.t is your take on the sexism issue in silicon valley? mike: it is kind of surprising to me that it took this long for anything like this to happen. i mean, it has been male-dominated for -- i am old. i was in it in the 1980's. i am not surprised. engineers, i making a broad statement, but i think a lot of male engineers have this thing about women that goes back to women treating them badly in high school. or something. and maybe there is a little bit of that. alec: anything that is ripe for satire, we have a duty to the show to go after. if we can figure out an inspired way to hit it, absolutely. emily: would you work for amazon studios? would you work for netflix? ♪ emily: i wonder, how does silicon valley compared to the other things that you have done? "seinfeld," "beavis and butthead," office space." mike: "king of the hill," "beavis and butthead," there was no overall arc. i have never done live-action television. i have done movies. when you have 40 crew people standing behind y

emily: ellen pao versus kleiner perkins trial. what did you see in that? david: let's see.ss i would see a no-win situation for anybody. it was a tragedy all the way around. emily: why? david: it is something that is not good for venture, not good for kleiner, not good for ellen. it turned out to be something where there is a lot of drama and a lot of pain. i am not sure what good came out of it. i am hoping there will be some. there are some good lessons there about how you treat employees. maybe some lessons about document retention. maybe some thoughts about how you build your firm. john: at the meta-level, the pressure it puts on our industry is to make sure we are representative of full diversity is very good. we have a lot of work to do there. david: until a firm votes with their feet and their wallets, they can be judged harshly. emily: part of the reason kleiner found itself in this position is venture capital firms have historically had a problem with succession. how do you make sure greylock is around for 50 years? david: greylock at 50 years could sometimes get t

an order to pay more than a quarter million dollars in attorney fees to her former employer, kleiner perkins. pao has sued the firm claiming it denied her promotions because of her gender. she lost the trial but sparked a diversity debate. pao recently resigned as ceo of reddit. >>> republican presidential hopeful jeb bush is scheduled to return to the bay area. he will attend a fundraiser in san francisco. tickets cost $2,700. this is the former florida governor's second stop here in the bay area in a month. >>> the smart train may lose its funding. a u.s. senate committee drastically cut a program. officials are still hopeful that some deal can be reached. in 2008, voters approved a sales tack with the promise the train would run from clover dale to larksburg, where riders could catch a ferry into san francisco. >>> now back to that search for a woman who may have jumped off the bay bridge into the waters below. abc 7 news reporter janet oh is live near the scene with the very latest for us. janet? >> reporter: you can see the coast guard out there on their boats with the flashing lights.

you may recognize this face, ellen powell recently sued her former employer kleiner perkins, accusingthem of gender discrimination by passing her up for promotions. she lost her case but it did attract a lot of international attention and at that has been one driver had this this discussion in the moves by vc firms to increase workplace diversity. the national venture capital association formed a new trade group in december which came up with the plan it is renting at the white house today. steps include research that measures diversity and developing better human resources policies. now, the numbers here not too good, according to a 2011 study by the association and by dow jones only 1% of vc partners are african-american, less than 1% are latino. according to a fortune magazine report in 2014, 92 of vc firms that raised over $200 million since 2009, only 4.2% of partner level venture capitalists were women. so again not good numbers and there's concern how this might impact who gets funding, women and minority entrepreneurs do they get the same attention from vc's? one silicon valle