Author Name: BoingBoing
This story was originally published on Boingboing.net. [1]
License: CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0.
CEO gets the last laugh after Fox News called him a "lunatic" for paying all employees $70K
Date: 2021-04-14 00:00:00
When CEO of Gravity Payments Dan Price announced in 2015 that everyone in his company would get a pay raise to at least $70,000 a year, and that he himself would slash his annual salary from $1 million to $70,000, Fox News pounced. The rabid Fox hosts called him "foolish," a "lunatic of all lunatics" and, gasp, a "socialist." They said his employees would be "on the welfare lines." Rush Limbaugh said, "This is pure unadulterated socialism, which has never worked. That's why I hope this company is a case study in MBA programs on how socialism does not work, because it's going to fail." Oh, how wrong they were.
Six years later, Dan Price tells us with a series of tweets that his company's revenue has tripled, their company base has doubled, homes owned by employees grew by 10x, and 70% of his employees have paid down debt. And he's "been hailed as a success by Harvard Business School and Inc. magazine," according to HuffPost, "which noted the number of employees at Gravity has doubled while the value of payments that the company processes has gone from $3.8 billion a year to $10.2 billion." One thing Limbaugh might have gotten right: this company will hopefully become a case study in MBA programs.
6 years ago today I raised my company's min wage to $70k. Fox News called me a socialist whose employees would be on bread lines.
Since then our revenue tripled, we're a Harvard Business School case study & our employees had a 10x boom in homes bought.
Always invest in people. pic.twitter.com/o7Ca7I4b7e — Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
Since our $70k min wage was announced 6 years ago today:
*Our revenue tripled
*Head count grew 70%
*Customer base doubled
*Babies had by staff grew 10x
*70% of employees paid down debt
*Homes bought by employees grew 10x
*401(k) contributions grew 155%
*Turnover dropped in half — Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
What helped inspire our $70k min wage?
An employee was secretly working a 2nd job at McDonald's. It was clear I was an awful CEO who was failing his employees. I gave her a raise to quit that job. No one should have to work two jobs to make ends meet.
https://t.co/hrgDYUDXYB — Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
We started our $70k min wage with about 130 employees in Seattle.
It worked so well we expanded it to a new Boise office, where the cost of living is lower but people deserve good pay all the same.
We now have about 200 employees
https://t.co/0eJxdZYape — Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
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