Dan Price

Daniel Joseph Price was born on May 13, 1984, in Lansing, Michigan. His father, Ron Price, worked as a business consultant and public speaker. He is the fourth of six children When he was young, his family moved to Nampa, Idaho, where he was homeschooled until the age of 12. While in high school, he joined a Christian punk rock band called Straightforword, playing bass guitar. Price said he was able to negotiate the fees down for the owner. His father was working in the credit card industry at the time and Price began to assist him. Price moved to Seattle to attend Seattle Pacific University (SPU). He graduated from SPU in 2008. == Career ==

Business In 2004, while a student at Seattle Pacific University, Dan Price, 19, started Price & Price as a merchant-services company along with his older brother, Lucas Price, 24. Lucas provided the seed money for the venture Dan became CEO in 2006. The brothers renegotiated their ownership stake in 2008 In July 2016, the lawsuit filed by Lucas Price was concluded when King County Superior Court Judge Theresa B. Doyle ruled in favor of Dan Price on all counts. The story quickly went viral. Price cited "High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being," a 2010 paper by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton of Princeton University, as motivation for his choice of the $70,000 minimum. but two experienced employees in Gravity's marketing department later said that Price himself came up with the Tesla gift idea, He told Inc. in an interview for a November 2015 cover story that he sold all his stocks, emptied his retirement accounts, and mortgaged two properties he owned, obtaining $3 million, which he put into Gravity Payments. Property records searches showed that Price had not mortgaged his homes at that time, and he acknowledged this in a February 2016 court filing. Price later mortgaged one of his properties in March 2016. He extended the same minimum wage to all employees of ChargeItPro, a company Gravity Payments acquired in 2019. Price resigned as Gravity Payments CEO on August 17, 2022, telling employees that he needed to step aside from his CEO role to "focus full time on fighting false accusations made against me." Tammi Kroll, Gravity Payments' chief operating officer, replaced Price as CEO. On May 28, 2024, Price announced that he had returned to Gravity "in a new role advising and assisting the CEO on strategy." Price's first book, Worth It, was self-published in April 2020. In September 2020, he tweeted, "52% of young adults now live with their parents, the highest rate ever, surpassing even the Great Depression. The most educated (and most in debt) generation in history did everything they were supposed to and got this. The system. Does. Not. Work." The post went viral a year later; one instance of it was shared over 15,000 times. USA Today fact-checked the tweet and found it to be accurate as of its original posting date, although out of context; the COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for the sudden spike in this figure. One of Price's tweets, about Dick's Drive-In's high wages and low prices, was shared over 70,000 times. Price accused Twitter of "shadow muting" his account in June 2021, noting an over 90% decrease in tweet impressions and profile views, month over month. In July 2021, Price posted on LinkedIn in favor of work from home, saying that introverts benefit from it. In March 2022, Facebook flagged a screen shot of a Price Twitter post about oil company profits, which had gone viral on its platform, as part of its efforts to combat misinformation. PolitiFact wrote that Price's tweet was "mostly true," stating that "while it was correct in its assertion that oil companies have recorded record profits, it ignored that those gains followed pandemic-era losses." == Reception ==

In 2010, Price was honored as the National SBA Young Entrepreneur of the Year and was invited to the White House to meet President Barack Obama. He won GeekWire's Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2013. Entrepreneur magazine named him Entrepreneur of 2014. After the pay raise announcement, Price became a celebrity, making numerous television and magazine cover appearances, and reportedly earning at least $10,000 per public speaking appearance. Writing for Esquire magazine, Natasha Zarinsky called him "a folk hero for the age of inequality." An Upworthy article in November 2021 began, "Dan Price is the go-to example for business done right." == Personal life ==

Price resides in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. He was married to Kristie Colón (née Lewellyn) The Netline reported that the couple married "after Dan's Christian parents demanded that they marry or end their relationship." Price has been accused of several physical and sexual assaults allegedly taking place between 2013 and 2022. After pleading not guilty in May 2022 to misdemeanor charges of assault and reckless driving, he resigned as CEO of Gravity Payments on August 17, 2022. Price announced on May 28, 2024, that he had returned to work at Gravity Payments in an advisory role. Legal issues In 2013, Price entered an Irish pub in Seattle, sat at a table of people he did not know, and was asked to leave. After the bar's manager escorted him out, Price allegedly assaulted the manager. Price's father denied Colón's accusations in an interview with the Idaho Statesman in December 2015. In January 2016, Colón published a blog post standing by her accusations. In April 2022, Price was under investigation by the Palm Springs Police Department for felony rape of a drugged victim stemming from an April 2021 incident in Palm Springs, California. On May 27, 2025, The New York Times reported that the Riverside County District Attorney's office had dropped the rape charges against Price. According to the alleged victim, the prosecutors told her that "it was too much of a 'he said, she said' case," although she noted that the grand jury had believed that there was enough evidence to go to trial. In February 2022, Price was charged with misdemeanor assault, misdemeanor assault with sexual motivation, and reckless driving after a 26-year-old woman accused Price of forcibly attempting to kiss her. The woman also told police that Price was driving while intoxicated. Price's attorney issued a statement denying the woman's claims. Price pleaded not guilty to the other two charges on May 31. On April 19, 2023, a city court dismissed the remaining charges without prejudice. ==Bibliography==