(Photo: Kleiner Perkins)

Kleiner Perkins partner Ellen Pao, who made headlines last year for suing the company in a widely publicized gender discrimination suit, is gainfully employed once more. After reportedly being fired from KPCB in October 2012, she has now taken a gig at community site Reddit, where she'll be "helping us build strategic partnerships that benefit the community."

Reddit announced the hiring in a blog post published to its site by CEO Yishan Wong. In the post, Mr. Wong states that Ms. Pao has been a "formal and informal advisor to reddit for more than a year." Reddit's general manager Erik Martin said that though Ms. Pao was an advisor, she did not formally invest in Reddit through Kleiner Perkins.

When last we heard from Ms. Pao, she wrote on the question and answer site Quora that she had been fired from KPCB:

“I have been terminated from my job at KPCB. On Monday afternoon, senior management told me to clean out my office, leave, and not come back.

Thank you, Quora community, for your support.”

It's interesting to note that Ms. Pao, who is embroiled in a gender discrimination suit, has opted to work for a community whose relationship to women is rather hostile, but Mr. Martin said Ms. Pao's current legal matters had no bearing either way on the company's decision to hire her. "Ellen is extremely qualified," he told Betabeat.

For its part, Reddit's small team employs a fair amount of women, including Jena Donlin, its senior manager of business operations, and community manager Alex Angel. Mr. Martin said that nine out of 25 of the staff are women.

Mr. Williams. (Photo: Wikipedia.org)

Power Literary Hire: Twitter cofounder Ev Williams's new publishing tool, Medium, just added an impressive member to its team. Kate Lee, a former literary agent from International Creative Management (ICM), has joined Mr. Williams's startup as the director of content. Ms. Lee was responsible for plucking several bloggers out of obscurity and giving them book deals. The Observer announced her leave from ICM back in April. In a blog post on the site, Mr. Williams described her job as "encouraging, soliciting, commissioning, and contextualizing interesting ideas, authors, and institutions" and noted that she would be building a small team in New York to help her do that.

Branch Finally Lets You Hang Out With Your Friends: Branch, the social conversations site, just launched a groups feature yesterday. In an email to Betabeat, Branch cofounder Josh Miller described it as "Branch's equivalent of a Follow button." The idea was inspired by the conversations that people have at dinner parties, in which smaller groups form to discuss topics that they care about. On Branch, these groups can be added into a conversation. Branch's example site includes a group featuring Mr. Miller, Medium's Ev Williams, John Borthwick from Betaworks, Michael Sippey from Twitter and Facebook's Sam Lessin. These groups have a possibility to create Bloods and Crips-like warfare in tech. Choose sides wisely.

Christmas Swag on a Million: BaubleBar, the discounted jewelry online megastore, is going all out for the holidays. In addition to its Soho pop-up shop The Bar, the company is partnering with nail polish giant Essie and teaming up with Elle magazine for a guided shopping experience. On Cyber Monday, BaubleBar will be giving customers a free product for every $40 they spend in what it calls its Cyber Monday Gifting Suite. And the "20 Days of Buried Baubles," in which 20 style influencers will offer a daily BaubleBar deal to their fans,will begin on the 30th. You're going to need a new jewelry rack.

Like the Song From Legally Blonde: Peek, the Eric Schmidt- and Jack Dorsey-backed travel site, is launching a new feature called Perfect Days. It allows users to share their ideal 24-hour game plan for a city. Users looking for places to recommend can pull from their Foursquare and Google Places accounts. The site already has some celebrities that have made their own Perfect Days, including designer Tory Burch and prolific tweeter Piers Morgan.

Designers Should Apply to This:  The investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) has announced that it's starting a design fellowship program to help young designers get acclimated to working with startups. The three-month program will pair up designers with some of KPCB's funded startups like Coursera, Flipboard, Klout, Square and Path. Applications are being accepted now and will be taken until January 31.

Makeup Ladies Go to the Net: Chloe + Isabel, the e-commerce jewelry brand, just announced the launch of its new online platform. Instead of just a regular store, the company is now employing an Avon model for direct sales, through which its users can now sell products to their friends and profit. These users can pull photos from their Instagram accounts to better display their products. Prepare to be spammed by your friend's hip mom.

Let's Pretend We're Rich: Zaarly, the online marketplace for goods and services, has just launched a virtual pop-up shop for Thanksgiving. If you burn the turkey, just hire a local chef to cook the meal for you. Or perhaps you're not a very good cleaner: just pay someone to do it for you. Hire a fleet of professional help to impress your out-of-town guests and say, "Oh them? They're here year-round!"

Don't Forget to Rate, Comment and Subscribe: Rightster, a service that helps content providers maximize revenue from online video, just announced that it has broken into the top 10 of the U.S. comScore YouTube rankings. It now owns around 300 YouTube channels. John Dillon, a former software ad exec at Alcatel Lucent, just joined Rightster as its new vice president of marketing.

A Really Pretty Junk Drawer: If your inbox is maxed out with daily deals and coupons from your favorite stores, then Sift is the new iPad app for you. It sorts your junk emails into a scrollable shopping experience. The YouTube demo is an EDM shopping party. Go nuts.

Companies Love Paying for Mobile: Usablenet, the company that makes mobile sites for big businesses, has just been named to Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, a power list that rates the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. Started in 2000, Usablenet claims that its revenues have grown 861 percent in the past four years.

Ms. Pao (kpcb.com)

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has filed a response to partner Ellen Pao's allegations of gender discrimination and boy howdy, they did not hold back. We've obtained a copy, and here's the meat and potatoes:

"KPCB generally denies each and every material allegation of the Complaint and further denies that Plaintiff has been damaged in the manner alleged, or in any manner or amount."

The firm also "vigorously denies" that it discriminated or retaliated against Ms. Pao, as well as claiming that Ms. Pao never reported anything prior to 2011, and they also deny that she complained in 2007.

The response goes into great detail, refuting many of Ms. Pao's accusations point-by-point:

• When she did complain in late 2011/early 2012, Ms. Pao was already represented by a lawyer, the filing claims.
• KP retained an outside investigator, who interviewed 17 partners, including every then-current KPCB female partner. The independent investigator concluded that her discrimination and retaliation complaints were without merit.
• KPCB denies that Raymond Lane pressured Ms. Pao to marry Mr. Nazre.
• She told Mr. Lane that she was putting the relationship with Mr. Nazre behind her, says the filing.
• That was in late 2011/early 2012, and that was the last any of the senior partners claim to have heard of the incident.
• In regards to the racy book she originally claimed to have received from Mr. Komisar, the response claims--well, it's worth quoting in full: "That book [which the response identifies as The Book of Longing] was reviewed by the New York Times as 'profound'  and having 'exceptional range.'" The document also claims it was purchased as a gift for Ms. Pao by Mr. Komisar's wife, and that Ms. Pao "never returned or objected to the gift in the many years after receiving it.

Regarding her performance reviews:

• In her 2009 self evaluation, she singled out the help she'd received from Komisar and other partners, saying that they are "supportive mentors and advisors." She also "specifically requested Komisar review her performance after the incidents she alleges as harassment," according to the filing.
• Initially, according to the filing, her reviews were encouraging: "Plaintiff's 2009 review encouraged Plaintiff to speak up more effectively and influentially, step out more in a leading role, present more new investment ideas, and take more risks by incubating a high potential venture and owning it--hardly retaliatory input." But it also "encouraged her to focus on her interpersonal and 'EQ' skills to more effectively direct and motivate teams." Then, in 2010, her review "advised Plaintiff that she was too 'territorial', that others did not 'trust her motivations'  and that she had a 'sense of  entitlement rather than earning her position via contribution, expertise, and making her fellow partners successful.'"

Regarding the party Ms. Pao alleges she was not invited to, lest she kill the buzz:

• KPCB denies that Ms. Pao was ever excluded from any company activities based on her gender.
• The dinner Ms. Pao alleges she was not invited to because she was a woman did in fact have female partners in attendance.
• KPCB also denies that it "excluded women from two dinners in San Francisco in 2011 or that any KPCB event was marred or motivated by gender animus or discrimination."

The also firm asserts that Ms. Pao was contractually obligated to seek third-party arbitration, and that by lodging a public suit, she has breached her contract. KPCB also claims that Ms. Pao was failed to competently perform the duties of her job.

KPCB is requesting "the Complaint be dismissed with prejudice and that Plaintiff take nothing," "That judgment be entered in favor of KPCB on all claims; That KPCB be awarded its attorneys' fees and costs of suit."

Besides the answer to Ms. Pao's complaint, documents filed include a motion to compel arbitration and a motion "to seal records lodged with the court filed by the defendant Kleiner Perkins." There's a hearing set for both issues on July 10.

Today was the deadline for KPCB to file a response, but they could have responded with a request for an extension. Instead, they've chosen to answer Ms. Pao's allegations. Until now, the storied VC firm had been largely silent, except for a strongly worded (though largely detail-free) statement from John Doerr, which called Ms. Pao's allegations false. Now we have a lot more details.

As of last week, Ms. Pao was still working at Kleiner Perkins.

Here's the full document:

Mr. O'Donnell

Thomson Reuters Venture Capital Journal just released its list of top VCs and deals thus far this year, with First Round Capital and Draper Fisher Jurvetson joining the ranks of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital. First Round, from its New York outpost on Park Avenue, and Draper, from DFJ Gotham's suite on West 31st St., both have a strong presence in New York City.

In total, peHUB says DFJ 's network is responsible for 28 deals from January to June, tying with Sequoia for the No. 3 slot. First Round's network is responsible for 27 deals through June. Among First Round's investments this year are homegrown start-ups like AdKeeper, GroupMe, and 33Across.  DFJ Gotham plunked down cash for Made In NYC ventures like Seamless Receipts, Yipit, Altruik, and Solvate.

Betabeat asked First Round principal Charlie O'Donnell how much of its $130 million fund, raised in 2010, was geared towards New York companies. "As a seed/angel stage investor, we're always on the most active lists and a lot of it is NYC, but a lot of it is our great SF office, too," he responded, via email.

"We see a pretty balanced stream of opportunities on both sides... but obviously when you're on the most active list, if have of your deals are in one place, you're going to be one of the most active local folks too. Personally, I think of it as a testament to reputation, too.  You're not going to do a this many quality deals unless you see a lot, and you're not going to see a lot unless you're thought of as a great partner."