What is Dan Price's net worth? CEO who raised minimum wage, slashed own salary says revenue tripled in 6 years
Dan Price, American Internet entrepreneur and CEO of online credit card processing company Gravity Payments, boasted on Twitter about how his decision to raise the minimum wage in his company resulted in increased revenue. “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,” he wrote. “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.”
Price gained viral recognition after he reportedly raised his company’s minimum wage to $70,000, and lowered his own salary from $1.1 million to $70,000 in 2015. He took to Twitter on Tuesday and claimed that since this revolutionary decision, his company’s revenue tripled, the headcount grew 70 percent, their customer base doubled, 70 percent of his employees paid down their debt, 76 percent of his employees were engaged at work (claiming that was twice the national average), customer attrition fell to 25 percent below the national average, and more.
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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.
— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
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
After our $70k min wage:
— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
*76% of employees are engaged at work, 2x the national average
*Customer attrition fell to 25% below nat'l average
*We expanded to a new Boise office & enacted $70k min wage there
*Our highest-paid employee makes 4x our lowest-paid employee, down from 33x
Price said that while the pandemic hit the company hard, because he created a workplace culture that made employees know they were valued, things worked out. "At the start of the pandemic, we lost 55% of our revenue overnight," Price said. "Our employees were so invested they volunteered to take temporary pay cuts to prevent any layoffs. We weathered the storm, paid everyone back, and are now giving out raises."
How much is Dan Price worth?
It’s a difficult number to estimate. In November 2015, Price revealed that he has sold all his stocks, emptied his retirement accounts, and mortgaged his two properties -- including a $1.2 million home in Washington -- and poured the $3 million he raised into Gravity Payments. Inc Magazine reported that as majority owner “he is not exactly penniless. But if Gravity fails, so does Price.”
"Most people live paycheck to paycheck," he told the magazine. "So how come I need 10 years of living expenses set aside and you don't? That doesn't make any sense. Having to depend on modest pay is not a bad thing. It will help me stay focused."
Price used to earn a salary of $1.1 million. But in 2015, he cut his salary down to $70,000 along with the rest of his employees. In 2013, Price said that Gravity hired compensation consultant Towers Watson to look at his salary. “The Towers Watson recommendation allowed for significant raises over the $1.1 million, but I elected to not raise my pay,” he said. He also told Bloomberg, “I have never given myself a raise without unanimous, full board approval. … That means we both voted the same way. Lucas Price and Daniel Price, the two board members.”
Price said in 2020 that he is happier than ever since he slashed his own salary from $1.1 million to $70,000 five years ago. “I can’t really fully declare it a success,” he said, “because in the five years since we’ve implemented our living wage program, income inequality, wealth inequality, and just the disparity of power between the wealthiest and the most powerful and everybody else has continued to grow in an alarming way.”
Price says he’s had to curtail some excesses since he lowered his own salary, but said, “I don’t miss those other things. It’s way better for me to be part of a system where people are having their needs being met, even if I have less.”
Price claimed that a colleague suggested to him that if he did business in a more traditional way, he could become rich and do more philanthropy. “He’s telling me that the world needs another billionaire philanthropist, and I just don’t know if that’s the case. Because we’ve been relying on billionaire philanthropists for so long, and I don’t really think that’s working out very well for us,” he said.