Welcome to the Hardcore Husky Forums. Folks who are well-known in Cyberland and not that dumb.
Sounds like gravity is failing just like Rush predicted.
Then the inevitable backlash came. Price has been pilloried on Fox News and trashed by the multimillionaire Limbaugh ("I hope this company is a case study in MBA programs on how socialism does not work, because it's gonna fail"). A Times story in July was so laden with quotes from disgruntled customers and staff that Price's worried friends called to say he always has a place to stay if things don't work out. Others accused Price of orchestrating a clever publicity stunt. ("If it was," he replies, "I'm a genius.")
Six months after Price's announcement, Gravity has defied doubters. Revenue is growing at double the previous rate. Profits have also doubled. Gravity did lose a few customers: Some objected to what seemed like a political statement that put pressure on them to raise their own wages; others feared price hikes or service cutbacks. But media reports suggesting that panicked customers were fleeing have proved false. In fact, Gravity's customer retention rate rose from 91 to 95 percent in the second quarter.http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/10/23/remember_dan_price_of_gravity_payments_who_gave_his_employees_a_70_000_minimum.html
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Funny think is, you can see a couple quotes in your article and the full story in the article I linked.
Of course it can't work in macro when there's competition for all those socialist nirvana dollars, but in micro at one firm, it's genius.
I've seen it myself, in a different way. The article discusses how he was penny pinching after the recession cause he had to and he saw productivity decrease too. Then he gave people 20% raises and was amazed how he was actually more profitable "giving money away to his employees".
My scenario, the first place I worked out of college. I was getting 15-20% raises a year along with a few others. The average raises were 10%. They kicked out the shitty performers. We grew from $4 million in revenue to $12 million and the partners went from making $250k a year to $750k a year. So the more they paid us, the more they made.
But you are right, this doesn't work in most scenarios (and his free pub is generating a lot of the growth). Big businesses like Microsoft are too big. I don't think it would work in a manufacturing setting, so a company like Boeing is out. But in smaller companies where humans " are the machines " generating productivity, it can and does work.
But then since you were a key cog in the growth of a successful company, I'm preaching to the choir there.
Contractors make 80k for sitting on two thumbs.
By the way, I paid people who worked for me well over 100k. Felt no need to call KOMO about it.