A Seattle CEO once celebrated for cutting his salary to boost the wages of all his employees has resigned over assault and reckless driving.
Dan Price, 38, announced Wednesday that he was stepping down from Gravity Payments, the credit card processing company he founded in 2004 at the age of 19.
“My number one priority is that our employees work for the best company in the world, but being here has become a distraction,” he wrote in an email to employees, which he shared on Twitter.
“I also need to step away from those duties to fully focus on fighting false allegations against me,” Price added, noting, “I’m not going anywhere.”
The CEO has been accused of trying to force a woman to kiss him after a business dinner in January.
The allegations follow similar complaints from his ex-wife, who said in a TED Talk that he would waterboard her.
Price pleaded not guilty to the allegations in May and the case is now pending.
Dan Price, 38, announced Wednesday that he is stepping down from Gravity Payments, the company he founded in 2004 at the age of 19
He will be replaced in his position by former COO Tammi Kroll (pictured).
Court documents obtained by the Seattle Times say the 26-year-old woman called Seattle police on Jan. 24 and said she met Price at a restaurant on Capitol Hill four days earlier.
The two had communicated about work on Instagram, and the woman said she reached out to Price to discuss “professional matters.”
But Seattle prosecutors say Price instead cornered the woman in his Tesla after dinner, tried to kiss her, and then grabbed her throat when she refused.
The woman alleges that Price then drove her to a North Seattle parking lot, where he took her for “donuts” in the car.
Company executives now say they thought it would be in Price’s best interest to step down in the face of the allegations.
“The company supports [Price’s] Decision to step down,” COO Tammi Kroll said in a statement. She will now take over the company and says, “I’m grateful to be guiding Gravity through this new chapter.”
He said in an email to staff that his “presence here has become a distraction” amid allegations he forced a woman to kiss him after a business dinner in January. He was charged with assault and reckless driving as a result of the encounter
Price founded Gravity Payments in 2004, using his older brother Lucas’ seed capital to build the startup in his dorm room at Seattle Pacific University.
He said he got the idea for the credit card processing company while playing in a rock band at a coffee shop in his hometown outside of Boise, Idaho, where the coffee shop owner often complained about how much she had to pay for credit card processing fees.
Over the years, Price made a name for himself in the Seattle business community, and in April 2015 he made national headlines when he announced he was cutting his salary from around $1 million to $70,000.
He will then use the company’s profits to ensure that every employee earns at least that much within three years, he said.
That was a 46 percent jump from Gravity Payment’s average annual salary of $48,000 at the time.
About 70 employees subsequently received raises, with 30 doubling their salaries, reports CBS News.
Price said in follow-up interviews that he came up with the idea after reading a study that showed additional income improved happiness for people making less than $75,000 a year.
“It’s not about making money; It’s about making a difference,” he told the TODAY Show in one of his many interviews after the big announcement.
He also told ABC News that he didn’t need the extra money, saying, “I’m a firm believer in less: the more you have, the more complicated your life gets at times.”
The company now pays all employees a minimum wage of $80,000, and executives announced earlier this year that they would be giving employees a $10,000 raise.
As a result, Gravity Payments now receives over 300 applications per job opening, reports the Seattle Times, and Price has boasted he’s never had to lay off an employee.
The company now serves over 13,000 merchants, helping them avoid fees and simplify credit card processing at the point of sale. According to the Seattle Times, it also helps them with mobile and e-commerce payments.
It markets itself as a service to “that little girl or dude who believes in the American dream and is willing to work to chase it.”
Price made his mark when he announced in 2015 that he would cut his $1.1 million salary to increase the wages of all his employees to $70,000
He made national headlines for the April 2015 announcement
In follow-up interviews, he said he came up with the idea after reading a study showing that extra income improves happiness for people making less than $75,000 a year. He is pictured here with NBC host Lester Holt
But behind the scenes, Price has faced some backlash over the years.
In fact, just about two weeks after announcing he would be giving raises to all his employees, he was sued by his brother Lucas, who owned a 30 percent stake in the company at the time.
Lucas had argued his brother was overpaying himself and running the company poorly, while Price indicated Lucas was upset by his announcement.
But according to Bloomberg, Price’s salary was uncharacteristic for a company of its size, given that it has to pass most of its revenue on to credit card networks and issuers.
According to Bloomberg, executives at similar companies made about $400,000 a year — not nearly the $1.1 million they made.
Still, according to Bloomberg, Price could afford a $900,000 home with a pool in Seattle, a rarity for the area.
Lawyers representing Lucas told Bloomberg he overpaid for years and said the lawsuit was the culmination of “years” of efforts to address Lucas’s concerns.
They said they filed the lawsuit before Price announced he was taking a pay cut.
Still, a King County judge eventually ruled that Price had not violated Lucas’ rights as a minority shareholder.
His ex-wife Kristie Colon accused him of harassing her while they were waterboarding together
However, Price has been accused of misusing funds to inflate his salary. He’s pictured here on the cover of Entrepreneur after his big announcement in April 2015
And months after Price’s big announcement, Price was accused of molesting his ex-wife, Kristie Lewellyn, who by then had changed her name to Kristie Colon.
The two married in 2005, a year before Price bought his brother to become the company’s CEO.
Then, on October 28, 2015, Kristie gave a TEDx talk at the University of Kentucky where she discussed the power of writing to overcome trauma.
Bloomberg reports that she read from a diary entry she allegedly wrote about her then-husband in May 2006, without naming Price.
She read: “He got mad at me for ignoring him and grabbed me and shook me again. He also threw me to the ground and sat on me.
“He started punching me in the stomach and punched me in the face. I was shaking so much.’
Later in the TEDx Talk, she shared how she once locked herself in a car “for fear he would slam me into the ground again or waterboard me in our upstairs bathroom like he had done before.”
In the aftermath, Price told Bloomberg, “The events you described never happened.”
Still, since last summer, as the Seattle Times reports, flyers have been spotted at Gravity Payments headquarters reading, “Were you abused by Dan Price?
‘We hear you. We believe you. We support you.’