Kate\u00a0Lowry, a former vice president at Insight Partners, is suing the firm, alleging disability discrimination, gender discrimination, and wrongful termination, according to a suit filed on December 30 in San Mateo County, California, and\u00a0seen\u00a0by TechCrunch.\u00a0\u00a0
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Insight Partners did not\u00a0immediately\u00a0respond to TechCrunch\u2019s request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lowry told TechCrunch she filed the suit because she believes \u201ctoo many powerful, wealthy people in venture act like it\u2019s OK to break the law and systemically underpay and abuse their employees.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an oppressive system that reflect[s] broader trends in society that use fear, intimidation, and power to silence and isolate truth. I\u2019m trying to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lowry\u00a0began working\u00a0at Insight Partners\u00a0in\u00a02022,\u00a0after previously working for Meta, McKinsey & Company, and an early-stage startup. The suit alleges that, upon being hired,\u00a0she was\u00a0assigned\u00a0to a different\u00a0supervisor than the person\u00a0mentioned during\u00a0her\u00a0interview.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
She alleges in the suit that she was told by her new supervisor, who was a woman, to be \u201conline all the time, including PTO, holidays, and weekends,\u201d and to respond between \u201c6 a.m. and 11 p.m. daily.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lowry\u00a0says\u00a0in the suit that\u00a0this\u00a0first supervisor\u00a0\u201cberated, hazed, and antagonized\u201d her,\u00a0spoke openly about\u00a0a\u00a0hazing\u00a0that\u00a0would be \u201clonger and more intense\u201d than what she put other male reports through.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some comments the supervisor allegedly made, according to the suit, include \u201cyou are incompetent, shut up and take notes\u201d and \u201cyou need to obey me like a dog; do whatever I say whenever I say it, without speaking.\u201d\u00a0 Lowry also alleges that her supervisor assigned her \u201credundant tasks\u201d and restricted her ability to\u00a0participate\u00a0in calls, while allowing less experienced male colleagues to do so.\u00a0Lowry, instead, she alleges, was relegated to \u201cadministrative tasks such as note-taking and cataloging.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Techcrunch event<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Lowry said she became \u201cincreasingly ill\u201d because of the work environment\u00a0and\u00a0that her physician\u00a0advised\u00a0a medical leave of absence, which\u00a0she was granted\u00a0and took\u00a0from February to July 2023.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
When she returned to work,\u00a0she was placed on a new team and, the\u00a0suit\u00a0alleges, was\u00a0told by the head of human resources that \u201cif the new team did not like her, she would be fired.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In September 2023,\u00a0Lowry said she\u00a0got a concussion and took another medical leave\u00a0and returned to\u00a0work\u00a0near the end of 2024. Due to some departures,\u00a0she\u00a0was placed under\u00a0the\u00a0supervision of a new\u00a0person, where Lowry said her poor treatment continued. She also alleges\u00a0that in 2024,\u00a0her\u00a0compensation was\u00a0about 30% below\u00a0the market.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By\u00a0April\u00a02025,\u00a0she alleges she was told her compensation would be cut. In May of 2025, through her\u00a0attorneys,\u00a0Lowry\u00a0sent a letter to Insight\u00a0regarding\u00a0her alleged treatment by the company. A week later, the firm\u00a0terminated\u00a0her employment, the suit states.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The lawsuit is reminiscent of Ellen Pao\u2019s suit against Kleiner Perkins back in 2012, in which she alleged discrimination and retaliation. That suit offered what was, at the time, a rare glimpse into how women partners felt they were treated in venture capital. Though Pao lost that suit, it sent waves through the industry, and\u00a0other women went on to sue<\/a>\u00a0major tech companies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kate\u00a0Lowry, a former vice president at Insight Partners, is suing the firm, alleging disability discrimination, gender discrimination, and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":495587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[64,9157,607,379,67,132,68,4502],"class_list":{"0":"post-495586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dei","10":"tag-entrepreneurship","11":"tag-lawsuit","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-venture"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115846089887114303","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}