Sex at Work: An MBA Guide

As first-year MBA students start summer internships and graduates begin post-MBA careers, a lot of things can go wrong, from using the wrong fork at a business lunch to a career-ending mistake. But one thing that gets relatively little attention is something that arguably should get more than it does: sex in the workplace.

About a third of all MBA students are smart, ambitious women in their late 20s; the vast majority will work for men in their 50s. Sex in the workplace isn’t a stretch. Just this weekend, the New York Times published a story about a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers who is suing the firm, alleging five years of retaliation following her decision to end a sexual relationship with a junior partner. The events Ellen Pao describes in her lawsuit began shortly after she joined the firm in 2005, seven years after receiving her MBA at Harvard Business School.