I can't find a reference right now, but didn't Warren Buffet do this when he was starting out? I could be wrong, but i feel like he realized that women could be hired at a much lower salary way back when they were be blatantly discriminated against.
You're probably thinking of Warren Farrell. He was writing a piece for the NYT on the wage gap when he thought "If workers can be bought for 75cents to the dollar then surely someone in the market would have taken advantage of this." The lack of case studies on any such companies is a telling sign that the "wage-gap" is more nuanced than just discrimination.
