Shannon Burns never expected that a single work trip to the Austrian Alps would upend her entire career, but that is exactly what happened. A highly accomplished tech executive who had spent a decade in Silicon Valley working for companies like Slack and Lyft, Burns had been headhunted by Gitpod, a German software firm, because of her expertise and leadership. She was drawn to the company partly because it promised to be a “thoughtful, inclusive space” for its employees. Instead, she found herself sleeping in a sauna room after losing the key to her hotel bedroom following a team-building exercise and drinks party. By the time she was dismissed, she was not just devastated professionally but also felt that her disability had been completely misunderstood. Burns, who has ADHD, says she was not drunk, as her former employers suggested, but had lost the key because of a symptom of her condition: a great deal of forgetfulness. That night, she had been criticised by the company’s founder and her own boss in front of colleagues, which triggered an emotional reaction that was later twisted into accusations of unprofessional behaviour. Now, she is suing Gitpod for a record-breaking £76 million, and her case has taken a major step forward after a judge accepted that she had been discriminated against because of her disability.
The incident that led to her dismissal took place in Lofer, Austria, during a work retreat that Burns says involved punishingly long days. She had been asked to work sixteen-hour days for three days in a row, with very little sleep, because of the demanding schedule. For someone with ADHD, the combination of exhaustion, sensory overload, and emotional pressure was overwhelming. At the drinks event, Burns says she reacted tearfully after being criticised by Gitpod’s founder and CEO, Johannes Landgraf, in front of colleagues. Her former employers saw this as evidence that she had got too drunk and fallen asleep in the sauna room, but Burns strongly contests this version of events. She explains that she had forgotten the key to her room because of the memory problems that come with her ADHD, and she ended up in the sauna room simply because she had nowhere else to go. When she later tried to explain her disability and how it affected her behaviour, she says the company failed to listen. Instead, she was accused of a “lack of professionalism” and dismissed. The way she describes it, she was not being difficult or careless; she was trying to function in an environment that made no allowances for her neurodivergence, and she was punished for it.
Before all of this, Burns had been upfront with Gitpod about her needs. She was thirty-seven, with more than a decade of experience in high-pressure tech roles, and she knew that her ADHD could make things harder if she did not have the right support. When she started at the company, she asked for an ADHD coach because she was experiencing a “worrying level of anxiety” about her workload. Instead of receiving help, she says she was questioned about the potential cost and told to look into it herself. That response was deeply unhelpful, especially for someone who was already struggling with an overwhelming sense of being in over her head. As she later told The Times, she was trying to communicate that she needed help because of the overwhelm caused by her disabilities, and her concerns were met with more work. This lack of understanding meant that the very accommodations that could have helped her succeed were never put in place. Burns tried to give her employers the benefit of the doubt and hoped they would learn and understand that the effects of their unconscious bias were illegal. But instead of any kind of recognition or support, she was blindsided when the company told her she needed an unexpected level of “support and mentorship” for someone of her seniority, which she felt was simply another way of punishing her for having a disability that she had already disclosed.
The legal case that Burns has brought against Gitpod is remarkable not only because of the size of her claim but because of what it represents for neurodivergent employees everywhere. At a preliminary hearing, a judge accepted that her case should proceed on the grounds of disability discrimination. Judge Rachel Wedderspoon acknowledged that Burns’s ADHD contributed to the forgetfulness that led her to lose her key, and that the company’s response had been shaped by a failure to understand her condition. However, a separate claim of sexual discrimination was thrown out, with the tribunal ruling that the accusation of a “lack of professionalism” was not related to her gender. That part of the case was a setback, but Burns described the latest ruling as “incredibly validating.” It is rare for a UK employment tribunal to consider awards of this kind, and Judge Wedderspoon noted that the £76 million figure is “highly unusual” and more likely to be seen in American courts. But she also said that the tribunal could not dismiss Burns’s valuation at this stage, especially without an expert report on employment remuneration or medical evidence. That means the full compensation hearing will go ahead at a later date, and the outcome could set a precedent for how disability discrimination cases are valued in the UK.
The enormous sum Burns is claiming is not a random number. She is asking for £76 million based on the lost earnings she says she would have made over the course of her career had she not been dismissed. Her salary at Gitpod was £220,000, plus an annual bonus of £78,000, so she was clearly a highly valued executive. She also had 0.85% shares in the company, which have become far more significant because OpenAI acquired Gitpod for an estimated $400 million, or around £302 million. That means Burns’s stake could be worth $3.4 million now, and potentially $27.85 million in four years if the acquisition reaches that valuation. These figures give context to her claim, because she lost not only her salary but also the long-term financial rewards that came with being an early executive at a successful tech startup. She argues that her dismissal was not just unfair but unlawful, and that she should be compensated for the entire trajectory of her career that was cut short. The fact that Gitpod has since been acquired by OpenAI only strengthens her case in her eyes, because it shows how valuable her work and her shares could have been had she stayed.
For Burns, the fight is about more than money. After she was dismissed, she applied for hundreds of jobs and eventually accepted a position that she says was six levels below the role she had held at Gitpod. She tried to rebuild her life, but her mental health suffered badly because of the fallout. Within a year, she left that job as well, because she was still dealing with the emotional damage of what had happened. She has spoken about how painful it was to be cast out of an industry she loved, and how difficult it has been to watch her former company grow and flourish while she was left behind. By speaking publicly about her case, she hopes to draw attention to the way neurodivergent employees are often treated in the workplace, and to make it clear that failing to provide reasonable accommodations is not just morally wrong but legally unacceptable. Her story is a reminder that even the most successful and capable people can be brought down by other people’s misunderstanding of a disability. It also shows just how much is at stake when companies do not take inclusion seriously. As her case continues to move through the legal system, she has become an unintentional advocate for others who have been pushed out of their jobs because of who they are. And with a record-breaking award potentially hanging in the balance, her battle with Gitpod may well reshape the landscape of employment law in Britain.
