Head-millionaire reduced his salary to the minimum and mortgaged the house to pay out $70 thousand

In 2015, the head of the company from Seattleworking in payment cards, introduced a minimum salary of $70 thousand for all of its 120 employees, and also cut his own salary. Five years later he’s still at minimum wage and said that the game was worth the candle.

Five years ago, Dan Price was travelling with my friend Valerie in the Cascade mountains, when she told him that her landlord raised the monthly fee by $200, and she is struggling to pay the bills.

According to price, it angered him. Valerie has served 11 years in the army, did two tours in Iraq and was now working 50 hours a week at two jobs to make ends meet.

Even though she was earning about $40 thousand a year in Seattle it was not enough to afford a decent house. Dan Price realized that he was also part of the problem of inequality.

In 31 years the Price has become a millionaire. His company, Gravity Payments, which he created as a teenager, had about 2,000 customers and is estimated at millions of dollars. Dan Price grew up in the backwoods of the Christian rural Idaho and eventually became a fighter against inequality in the United States.

«People are fired or exploited, someone could buy a penthouse with Golden chairs in new York,» says Dan Price.

In 1965, the General Director in the U.S. earned 20 times more than the average worker, but by 2015 they have to earn more than 300 times.

In 2015, the Price read the research of Nobel laureates-economists Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton of how much money you need Americans to be happy. He promised Valerie that will significantly raise the Gravity up to $70 thousand a year.

To do this he had to reduce his salary, but also to lay the two houses and abandon savings. In 2015, the number of staff at Gravity Payments has doubled, and the volume of payments processed by the company grew from $3.8 billion a year to $10.2 billion

Geplaatst door Dan Price op Maandag 21 September 2015

But there are other indicators that the Price is more proud.

«Since that time our employees was born more than 40 children. More than 10% of the company’s employees were able to purchase a home in Seattle. Previously this figure was less than 1%,» says air force Price.

The amount of money that employees voluntarily invest in their pension funds have more than doubled, and 70% of the employees repaid their debts.

By the way, two members of Gravity in high positions quit in protest. They were not happy that the salaries of Junior staff rose sharply, and claimed that it will make us lazy, and the company is not competitive.

But this did not happen.

Some followed the example of Dan price. Thus, the firm PharmaLogics in Boston raised the minimum wage to $50 thousand as Rented.com in Atlanta. Price believes that by lobbying on the Internet, he also influenced the decision by Amazon to increase its minimum wage.

The increase in the salaries of employees affected the way of life of the head Gravity.

He used to live in a nice house overlooking the Bay of Puget in Seattle and was drinking champagne in expensive restaurants.

After that, he rented a house on Airbnb and went to 12-year-old «Audi», while officers will not reset the boss on «Tesla.» Price broke into tears when he got a new car.

Five years later, Dan Price is still at the minimum wage in Gravity. He says he’s more satisfied with life than when I was earning millions.

«I have dark thoughts, when I think: I want to be as rich as mark Zuckerberg, want to be in the list of Forbes, the cover of Time magazine. All these greedy things tempting. From them difficult to refuse. But my life is much better.»

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