KLEINER’S headquarters in an office park near here does everything possible to minimize the moment. A low-slung building that is obscured if not overwhelmed by vegetation, it looks like the home of a laid-back research center for the promotion of world peace. The parking lot has one Porsche, but otherwise Lexus is about as fancy as it gets. Venture capital wants to change the world without drawing attention to itself.

While Kleiner has seen its magic touch somewhat dimmed of late — it came very late to the money fountain that was Facebook — a lawsuit like this could permanently kill the buzz. Already, it has eclipsed the mid-May announcement of the firm’s 15th fund, a $525 million investment pot. Which, despite all those women at Kleiner, is being run by one woman and nine men.

Ms. Pao, who came to Kleiner with the dream of helping direct such a fund, graduated from Princeton with a degree in electrical engineering. She got a law degree from Harvard and worked for Cravath Swaine & Moore for two years doing international deals. She returned to Harvard for a business degree and worked for a variety of tech companies, including BEA Systems and Tellme Networks. Her geek cred is pretty unassailable.

In 2005, she came to Kleiner as a junior partner, working as chief of staff to John Doerr. He was one of the main evangelists who shaped the modern Internet, a geek’s geek who became a billionaire. But, unlike many here, money never seemed his primary goal.

Ms. Pao’s role was to help Mr. Doerr identify investments, interview executives and write speeches.

According to the suit, her troubles began almost immediately when another junior partner, Ajit Nazre, made inappropriate sexual advances. Eventually, the complaint says, Ms. Pao “succumbed to Mr. Nazre’s insistence on sexual relations on two or three occasions.” When she put an end to the relationship, it says, he “started a consistent pattern of retaliation against her.” This went on for five years, it contends.

The harassment part of the suit pales in comparison to the retaliation part, which blends into an allegation of a general effort to keep women in their place. Kleiner, Ms. Pao’s lawsuit says, discriminated against her and other women “by failing to promote them comparably to men, by compensating them less than men through lower salary, bonus and carried interest, by restricting the number of investments that women are allowed to make as compared to men.”

The firm, which has about 80 employees here with a handful more in China, is accused of failing to act when complaints of sexual harassment or discrimination were made. Ms. Pao says women are excluded from meetings and discussions. The firm fails to provide opportunities for visibility and success inside and outside the firm for women as compared with men, the complaint says.