My son’s Wheaton Terrier is a great candidate for one of those viral videos with pets chasing a dot of light from a laser pointer. It’s hilarious watching her futile chase to catch the red dot, or, for that matter, any reflected light on the ceiling or walls. While I don’t know what’s going through her mind, I know how she feels.
In my 25 years of business consulting I’ve had my own futile chase trying to catch a CEO doing the right thing. I’ve witnessed a CEO executing a long con to knowingly pad executives’ retirement by sacrificing thousands of jobs and decimating a city, another rotating dozens of people from India here on tourist visas, housing them 8 to an apartment, so he could get work done 60% cheaper than by employing Americans, and another draining talent from a developing nation by training top people and relocating them around the world to reduce labor costs. That’s the intro to a long, long list of bad actors sitting atop the world’s biggest companies. Did you know many subsidiaries are formed, not to “focus on a market” but to lower worker compensation? Don’t even get me started on why more women and minorities aren’t in executive roles.
Finally there is hope. Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, a credit card payment processing company in Seattle, is slashing his million dollar salary to $70,000 while giving his employees raises. According to an abc.com report, Price wants all Gravity Payments employees to make a minimum of $50,000 a year and receive increases to reach $70,000 by December 2017. When asked why, Price said he can live well enough at $70k and he wants his employees to be happy. By the way, he studied music in college. Seems that concept of ‘all members of an ensemble are equally important’ rubbed off.
Dan Price’s decision is decidedly counter-culture. Consider that average CEO compensation in 2014 was $6.4 million, up more than 13% from 2013 while wages for average workers has stagnated or declined for decades (inflation-adjusted minimum wage is nearly 20% lower now than 30 years ago). The average CEO now takes home 331 times more than the average worker. That ratio was only 48:1 in 1983.
It’s debatable if there is now a “war on the wealthy”, but if we want to stave off revolution our culture better start at least doing psychotherapy because CEO compensation is insane. And CEOs should look hard at the example of Dan Price, rather than John “Papa John” Schnatter who complained Obamacare added two cents to the cost of a pizza while sitting in his 40,000 square foot home replete with a golf course in his backyard.
Let’s find a way to support Dan Price. Share this post widely and, if you or someone you know needs a credit card payment processor, contact Gravity Payments.
Finally there is hope. Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, a credit card payment processing company in Seattle, is slashing his million dollar salary to $70,000 while giving his employees raises. According to an abc.com report, Price wants all Gravity Payments employees to make a minimum of $50,000 a year and receive increases to reach $70,000 by December 2017. When asked why, Price said he can live well enough at $70k and he wants his employees to be happy. By the way, he studied music in college. Seems that concept of ‘all members of an ensemble are equally important’ rubbed off.
Dan Price’s decision is decidedly counter-culture. Consider that average CEO compensation in 2014 was $6.4 million, up more than 13% from 2013 while wages for average workers has stagnated or declined for decades (inflation-adjusted minimum wage is nearly 20% lower now than 30 years ago). The average CEO now takes home 331 times more than the average worker. That ratio was only 48:1 in 1983.
It’s debatable if there is now a “war on the wealthy”, but if we want to stave off revolution our culture better start at least doing psychotherapy because CEO compensation is insane. And CEOs should look hard at the example of Dan Price, rather than John “Papa John” Schnatter who complained Obamacare added two cents to the cost of a pizza while sitting in his 40,000 square foot home replete with a golf course in his backyard.
Let’s find a way to support Dan Price. Share this post widely and, if you or someone you know needs a credit card payment processor, contact Gravity Payments.
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