Dan Price

Dan Price is an American Internet entrepreneur.[1] He is the CEO of the online credit card processing company Gravity Payments, which he started while a student at Seattle Pacific University.[1][2] He gained recognition after he raised his company’s minimum wage to $70,000, and lowered his wage from $1.1 million to $70,000.[3][4] He extended the same minimum wage to all employees of ChargeItPro, a company Gravity Payments acquired.[5] In March 2020, Price said that the pay raise has worked well for the company in particular, but he hesitated to call it a full success because income inequality in the broader world has continued to grow.[6]

Dan Price
EmployerGravity Payments
TitleCEO

Career

In 2015, Price accepted a $500,000 book deal to be published at Penguin Random House imprint Viking.[3] The book plans to be a first-person account of the establishment of Gravity Payments and will discuss socially conscious business.[3]

Personal life

Price was raised in rural southwestern Idaho and homeschooled until age 12.[2] He has an older brother, Lucas; a younger brother, Alex; and another brother named Jessie.[7]

He was raised in a conservative Christian family[8] but is less religiously strict now.[7]

He married Kristie Colón in 2007 but was divorced in 2012.[9]

Controversy

Lawsuit

On April 24, 2015, a lawsuit was filed against Dan Price by his brother, Lucas Price.[10] The lawsuit claimed that Dan Price was overpaying himself and depriving Lucas Price of benefits he deserves as a minority-shareholder.[10] Dan Price admitted that some of the statements he made about Gravity Payments since raising the minimum wage weren’t true.[11][12] In July 2016, King County Superior Court Judge Theresa B. Doyle ruled in favor of Dan Price on all counts.[13]

Abuse accusations

On October 28, 2015, Price’s ex-wife, who now goes by Kristie Colón, gave a TEDX talk at the University of Kentucky that described her experience with domestic abuse, without explicitly naming Price.[14] Price denied claims of abuse and said the events described never happened and there is no record of a police report being filed.[15][9] The University of Kentucky reversed its decision to release the recording of Colón’s talk.[9] In January 2016, Colón published a blog post standing by her accusation of Price.[16]

References
  1. Keegan, Paul (2015-11-11). "A Day in the Life of Dan Price, the $70,000 Minimum Wage CEO". Inc.com. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  2. Cohen, Patricia (2015-04-13). "One Company's New Minimum Wage: $70,000 a Year". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  3. Lagorio-Chafkin, Christine (2015-10-27). "Gravity Payments' $70,000 Founder Scores $500,000-Plus Book Deal". Inc.com. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  4. Mason, Anthony (2015-04-14). "CEO to employees: $70,000 is our new minimum wage". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
  5. Lewis, Sophie (2019-09-25). "CEO stuns employees by giving them each a $10,000 raise". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
  6. Goodyear, Sheena (2020-03-02). "Seattle CEO who pays workers at least $70K US says it's paying off in spades". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  7. Cohen, Patricia (2015-07-31). "A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  8. Johnson, Jim Ludema and Amber (2018-08-28). "Gravity Payment's Dan Price On How He Measures Success After His $70k Experiment". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  9. Weiss, Geoff (2015-12-17). "Video Containing Allegations Dan Price Abused His Ex-Wife Won't Publish and Has Been Deleted". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  10. "Gravity Payments CEO, who set $70K minimum pay, sued by brother". The Seattle Times. 2015-07-20. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  11. Stewart, Ashley (2016-06-01). "'A troubling story of ego:' Gravity Payments' CEO Dan Price takes the stand in lawsuit against brother". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  12. Evon, Dan (2017-01-09). "FACT CHECK: Did Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price Have to Rent His House to Make Ends Meet?". Snopes.com. Retrieved 2020-04-03.
  13. "Dan Price, the '$70k CEO,' prevails in lawsuit filed by his brother and Gravity Payments co-owner". GeekWire. 2016-07-09. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  14. Weise, Karen (2015-12-01). "The CEO Paying Everyone $70,000 Salaries Has Something to Hide". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  15. Kasperkevic, Jana (2015-12-03). "CEO who set $70,000 minimum wage: ex-wife's abuse accusations 'baseless'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  16. Weiss, Geoff (2016-01-20). "Dan Price's Ex-Wife Stands By Domestic-Abuse Allegations in Latest Blog Post". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2020-04-02.


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