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Gravity Funds CEO Dan Worth resigns amid assault allegations

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The Seattle CEO who rose to nationwide prominence for setting a $70,000 minimal wage for all his workers — and slashing his personal to match — has resigned from the corporate he based in faculty amid accusations of misdemeanor assault.

Dan Worth stated Wednesday that he was stepping down from Gravity Funds, a bank card processing agency, to dedicate extra time to “combating false allegations.” Earlier this 12 months, he was accused of making an attempt to kiss a lady in opposition to her will, the Seattle Instances reported.

“My No. 1 precedence is for our workers to work for the perfect firm on the earth, however my presence has turn into a distraction right here,” he wrote in an e mail to workers that he additionally shared on Twitter on Wednesday evening. “I additionally have to step other than these duties to focus full time on combating false accusations made in opposition to me,” including, “I’m not going wherever.”

Worth didn’t elaborate on the allegations or instantly reply to a request for remark. Gravity Funds didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

A frequent critic of company executives and the huge pay hole between them and their staff, Worth received nationwide acclaim in 2015 after saying he would increase each worker’s wage to at the very least $70,000. At the moment, his 120 workers had been paid a mean wage of $48,000 a 12 months, in response to the Instances.

He additionally lowered his personal $1 million compensation to that ground, taking a greater than 90 % pay minimize, and tapped roughly three-quarters of that 12 months’s income to cowl the upper wages, the report added. Worth stated he would preserve his wage low till the income had been earned again.

On Twitter Worth touted the success of his firm’s mannequin and the advantages afforded to workers. The minimal pay for staff is now $80,000, he stated, and workers acquired a $10,000 baseline increase this 12 months. Job openings sometimes entice greater than 300 candidates, he stated.

The unique wage ground was set the identical 12 months Worth received a authorized battle in opposition to his brother, Lucas Worth. A three-week courtroom battle ensued after his older brother, Lucas Worth, alleged that his rights as a minority shareholder had been violated when Dan Worth upped his personal wage. A King County Superior Courtroom choose disagreed, and ordered Lucas Worth to pay his brother’s authorized charges, totaling $1.3 million.

Worth was 19 when he began Gravity Funds in 2004 out of his dorm room at Seattle Pacific College, utilizing seed cash from Lucas Worth, in response to the Instances.

Now 38, Worth’s public persona is formed round his advocacy for common staff and criticism of massive enterprise. He authored a 2020 guide entitled “Price It: How a Million-Greenback Pay Lower and a $70,000 Minimal Wage Revealed a Higher Means of Doing Enterprise.” That very same 12 months, he wrote a perspective piece for The Washington Put up, championing his firm’s therapy of staff as a mannequin that allowed workers to determine methods to confront the financial shocks through the early months of the pandemic.

He additionally wrote that 98 % of Gravity Funds workers volunteered to briefly minimize their pay from 5 to one hundred pc to keep away from layoffs. On Wednesday Worth stated that the corporate has by no means laid off a single worker in its 18-year historical past.

Worth’s profile rose as a broader dialog was taking part in out round pay disparity and financial inequality, with company America and their extremely compensated executives usually catching the brunt of the criticism.

A 2019 evaluation by researchers on the Financial Coverage Institute discovered that compensation for high executives over the previous 4 a long time rose virtually 1,000 % after adjusting for inflation. The research discovered that common pay for high companies leaders on the nation’s 350 largest corporations amounted to 1$ million per 12 months or greater than $17 million when the realized worth of inventory choices are factored in.

In the meantime the minimal wage on the federal degree has remained unchanged since 2009, at $7.25 an hour. Though some state governments have taken the lead on elevating the ground to upwards of $15.

The corporate’ chief working officer, Tammi Kroll, has stepped in as CEO, Worth stated in his announcement.

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