Ellen Pao, the former Reddit CEO and venture capitalist who sued her investment firm for gender discrimination, is back in the venture capital game with a new role that focuses on increasing diversity in the overwhelmingly homogenous Silicon Valley.

Pao is joining the non-profit Kapor Center for Social Impact as chief diversity and inclusion officer, where she will help entrepreneurs outline best practices to build diverse workforces early in startups' development. Pao's goal is to help startups ingrain diversity in their companies from the beginning rather than through tacked-on initiatives down the line. She will also be a venture partner at Kapor Capital, the Center's VC arm, which requires a measurable commitment to diversity from any startup it invests in. The firm funds startups that solve problems for underserved people.

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Pao famously took her previous employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers , to court in 2012, alleging that she was discriminated against for being a female. She ultimately lost the case in 2015, but it had the effect of shining a brighter spotlight on the lack of diversity in the Valley, as well as the challenges women in the industry face there. (See A Vast Valley: Tech's Inexcusable Gender Gap and Tales From the Valley: Bias, Sexism & Worse.)

In the following video clip, Pao shares with CNBC why she thinks it's so hard to change the Silicon Valley boys' club. It's much more than the oft-cited pipeline problem.