CEO stuns employees with immediate $10K raise, pledges $30K raise over next 5 years

Gravity Payments, a Seattle-based credit card processing company, recently acquired ChargeItPro in Eagle, Idaho, and the group moved into a new office space. Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price flew in to welcome employees to the new office -- and then stunned them with the news that many of the employees would get a $10,000 pay bump effective immediately and the minimum salary for employees would rise to $70,000 by 2024.

"I took between an 80 and 90 percent pay cut, and our chief operating officer took about an 80 percent pay cut, and our executive team absolutely makes less than what other companies would pay," he said. "It absolutely is coming out of executive pay, it’s an investment, I think we’ve proven that it can work."

Gravity Payments works to "make payment processing fair for small- and medium-sized businesses," according to Price, who said that they are also now working with software companies to develop solutions that help small businesses process payments so that people's interactions with their customers don't simply revolve around money.