What started out initially as a well-meaning gesture, hasn’t quite gone to plan for this company CEO.
Dan Price, CEO of credit card company ‘Gravity’ made headlines recently when he took a 90% paycut, and paid every worker at his company $70,000 across the board, regardless of job.
His salary was $1 million, which he dropped down to $70K, in order to share the wealth.
Some people commended him, mainly people who’s wage would be increased, while others mocked him… Mainly those who would have to take a pay cut.
Speaking to The New York Times, the 31 year old CEO said:
I’m working as hard as I ever worked to make it work
I’m renting out my house right now to try to make ends meet myself.
A number of his workers ended up leaving the company, mostly unhappy with the fact that lesser-skilled employees who hadn’t been there as long were getting a much bigger pay hike than some of the longer serving and better skilled workforce.
One of those that left was Grant Moran, who said:
Now the people who were just clocking in and out were making the same as me.
It shackles high performers to less motivated team members.
A major problem has been the legal battle that Dan has been in with his brother, Lucas, who owns 30% of the company, and filed a lawsuit 2 weeks after the wages announcement, accusing him of taking millions out of the company profits, and denying him the benefits of minority ownership.
It’s a shame to see how things have turned out for him, because Dan Price clearly did this with the best of intentions. Hopefully he can get people on board that are fully on his wavelength, and things will pick up soon. It’s certainly a noble gesture.
