In her complaint, Nan Shi says she was working as a principal software engineer when the supervisor, industry veteran Maria Zhang, forced her to have sex against her will on multiple occasions, promising her “a bright future at Yahoo” if she acquiesced. After coercing her to have “oral and digital sex,” Shi says when she finally resisted Zhang’s advances, the executive retaliated by giving her a bad performance review and removing her as a project lead. When she reported the abuse to Yahoo, Shi says, the company did nothing to stop it, and then put her on what eventually became an unpaid leave followed by final termination that took effect Friday.
According to Shi and her Sunnyvale attorney, Matthew Fisher, Shi had been working for Zhang’s mobile-app startup in Seattle and when Yahoo purchased it in 2013, both women came down to work for Yahoo. Shi says Zhang told her to move into a temporary Yahoo housing unit in Sunnyvale.
“While staying with Plaintiff, Zhang coerced Plaintiff to have oral and digital sex with her on multiple occasions against her will, even after Plaintiff told her she did not want to have sex,” the complaint alleges. “Zhang told Plaintiff she would have a bright future at Yahoo if she had sex with her. She also stated she could take away everything from her including her job, stocks, and future if she did not do what she wanted.”
The complaint alleges that Zhang, as Shi’s manager, forced her “to work grueling hours and compose work emails over the weekend at the apartment, sometimes right after sex.”
Zhang did not respond to a request for comment. But a Yahoo spokesperson said “There is absolutely no basis or truth to the allegations against Maria Zhang. Maria is an exemplary Yahoo executive, and we intend to fight vigorously to clear her name.”
