GEE AND URSULA
Gee interviews CEO Dan Price on latest episode of ‘Leaving a Legacy’
On episode three of “Leaving a Legacy,” Gee Scott interviews Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price, who famously decided to pay all his employees a $70,000 minimum salary.
“I was out of touch,” Price told Gee. “I was making a million dollars a year, and it sounds like a lot of fun and of course that’s great, and it would be good for everyone to have the opportunity to make enough money to be happy and healthy and those sorts of things. But when you’re making that kind of money — somebody making $35,000 or $40,000 dollars a year — you really don’t see their struggles.”
Price said he caught a lot of heat on social media, especially on LinkedIn, after word got out that he paid all of his employees a minimum of $70,000. He said it’s important for Americans to think about how other systems outside of trickle-down economics can work. Price pointed out that if the average worker got bonused like CEOs, people making $60K now should be closer to $120K, and people making $40K now should be closer to $80K.
“It’s not rocket science, and the billionaires know that so they hit us with all these messages that we won’t be able to defeat,” Price said. “But they don’t make any sense. They’re just sort of meaningless statements.”
Price said he grew up in a very rural area of Idaho. His first job was at 13 years old, installing HVAC systems. His two real jobs (with a W-2) were at Outback Steakhouse as busboy and a prep cook, and as a lifeguard. He also started a band at 12 years old.
“I started building what became Gravity my junior year of high school, around the time I was 17-18 years old, so I’ve pretty much been doing this my whole life,” Price said. “So I just have to say that somebody in this field, in 2021, gets more credit than they deserve, gets more money than they deserve because us tech CEOs sort of have the deck stacked in our favor right now. … I get a lot of credit for being basic, my friend, but don’t forget that I am basic.”
Price said he doesn’t think he did anything special but to pay people wages closer to what they should be. And any nice 10-year-old would have made the same move.
“I don’t think I’m a hero and I don’t think I should be looked up to in any moral sense,” he said.
In “Leaving a Legacy,” Gee takes listeners on a journey to discover how some of our most influential public figures want to leave their legacy on this world, and how his own experience can be contributed to the shoulders of giants that came before him.
Other guests on “Leaving a Legacy” include former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver and current CBS Mornings host Nate Burleson; the “King of Twitter” Josiah Johnson; and Amanda Knox, an author, activist, and journalist who was wrongly convicted in the murder of her roommate and imprisoned in Italy.
Gee is the co-host of KIRO Radio’s “Gee & Ursula Show,” which can be heard weekdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., or on demand at MyNorthwest.com.
“Leaving a Legacy” is available on all podcast platforms, and listeners can also watch each episode on the KIRO Radio YouTube channel. Text LEGACY to 888-973-5476 for more information.
