Gravity Payments CEO promises all employees $70k/year

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Kiopa_Matt

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Gravity Payments CEO defends $70,000 minimum salary - Aug. 9, 2015

Price decided to hike his employees' pay after he read a study about happiness, which concluded that addtional income up until a salary of $75,000 a year can make a significant difference in a person's emotional well-being.


About 70 of the company's 120 workers will have their pay raised to $70,000 over the next three years. About 30 of those workers will have their pay doubled.


Price also cut his own salary from nearly $1 million to $70,000, to help pay for the other salary increases.


"If we're actually able to pay everybody enough that they can live a normal life, within a mile or two of our office, then to me, there is a moral imperative to create some standard, some [salary] floor," Price said.
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Thoughts? Smart business move to build a good, loyal workplace environment, or straight up socialism as it rewards everyone the same regardless of job performance?
 


If he really believed in that why not give it to 100% of his employees and have the most happy employees ever...

Or, maybe he's only giving it to the deserving % because they're under paid already.

Publicity.
 
He is giving it to 100% of all 120 employees. Everyone gets $70k/year, even the junior level employees.
 
Wasnt this the guy who had his better employees quit because the lesser ones got a raise and they didnt?
 
Kiopa_Matt said:
Gravity Payments CEO defends $70,000 minimum salary - Aug. 9, 2015




Thoughts? Smart business move to build a good, loyal workplace environment, or straight up socialism as it rewards everyone the same regardless of job performance?
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Apparently he's lost several of his big contracts over this because they thought it was too socialist. But also, he lost several senior employees over this because they saw it as unfair that new hires, unskilled and unproven would get the same pay as they do.
 
rusvik said:
Wasnt this the guy who had his better employees quit because the lesser ones got a raise and they didnt?
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I have a strong suspicion that someone on this board is one of his freeloader employees. Moonlighting as a gay webmaster hath never been so profitable.
 
dreamache said:
"I am renting out my house right now to try to make ends meet myself. I haven’t made this little amount of money since I was in my early 20s." - Dan Price.

CEO who boosted salaries to a $70,000 minimum now renting house 'to make ends meet' - GeekWire
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The 31-year-old Price, who cut his salary and bonus of more than $1 million to $70,000 in April, is facing heavy legal costs after his brother and Gravity Payments co-founder, Lucas, sued him in King County Superior Court.
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I believe this is mostly because he's being sued.
 
^^^

It's not clear whether the company is being sued. I think I recall reading elsewhere that the pay raise had depleted company funds, so he was unable to fight the lawsuit.

Lucas Price claims his brother excessively paid himself and deprived Lucas Price of his minority-shareholder benefits. According to media reports, Dan Price was paying himself nearly $1 million a year before announcing he would cut his pay to $70,000 to help Gravity raise the pay of its employees to $70,000 over the next three years.
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Gravity Payments CEO, who set $70K minimum pay, sued by brother | The Seattle Times
 
If he were my brother, I'd also sue him for being such an imbecile... then I'd rent out that room and shit on his floor. You know, just in case he didn't quite get that first memo.

And you call yourself a businessman! Psh!!
 
bluechinagroup said:
Ugh man having your own brother who co founded the company sue you is pretty ugly.



Can you post some details on the lawsuit? If the brother suing him individually as well as the company?
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:offtopic:

Hey BCG... I'm beginning to think you're a big fan of the drama... lol!
 
charlesmartel said:
^^^

It's not clear whether the company is being sued. I think I recall reading elsewhere that the pay raise had depleted company funds, so he was unable to fight the lawsuit.



Gravity Payments CEO, who set $70K minimum pay, sued by brother | The Seattle Times
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Considering the lawsuit happened less than two weeks after that was announced, it's likely he knew the lawsuit was coming when he made that $70k minimum pay announcement. You all are marketers, you don't think that maybe he was trying to paint himself in a certain light for when the lawsuit hit?

Also considering the $70k salaries haven't even taken effect yet, and he was paying himself millions of dollars, I don't quite follow how you could conclude that he was unable to fight the lawsuit due to the $70k salaries he promised.
 
potentialeight said:
I'm really surprised that he didn't see ahead of time how much that was going to alienate his employees.
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This happens all the time to successful people. The guy built a multi-million dollar company in his 20s, he probably has a high opinion of himself. So when he got a dumb ass idea in his head he simply couldn't let it go even if his team was telling him it was dumb.

The company was successful because of lots of luck factors, hiring the right people and such. But founders often don't see it that way; they believe 100% of the success of the company was from them. This leads to some really dumb moves sometimes.

cardine said:
Also considering the $70k salaries haven't even taken effect yet, and he was paying himself millions of dollars, I don't quite follow how you could conclude that he was unable to fight the lawsuit due to the $70k salaries he promised.
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There is a good chance even though the guy paid himself millions over the last few years he's got low 5 figures in network besides equity in his home/property. It's pretty common for people so spend everything they make even at that income level.
 
miketpowell said:
There is a good chance even though the guy paid himself millions over the last few years he's got low 5 figures in network besides equity in his home/property. It's pretty common for people so spend everything they make even at that income level.
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That might be true but I think it is irresponsible for people to be stating that someone is having trouble paying their legal bills, and presuming causality as to why, when there is absolutely zero evidence that is the case.
 
Cardine: Take a look at the GeekWire link. In it he says he is renting out his house to make ends meet.

Marketing Strategy? Lower everyone's salary including your own to $70k and look like a hero to the world (He invited the NYTimes for his announcement) and now play broke. He even has to rent his own house out to make it. Will it fly in court though?
 
Jon said:
If he were my brother, I'd also sue him for being such an imbecile... then I'd rent out that room and shit on his floor. You know, just in case he didn't quite get that first memo.

And you call yourself a businessman! Psh!!
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FTW.
 
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