Businesses have the obligation to do what’s right

Dan Price, CEO and founder of Gravity Payments, spoke to students about the current state of business ethics and his revolutionary management tactics at last semester’s Forum on Ethics program. Price began by noting the morally reprehensible state of the business world. Those in power receive no negative repercussions for treating people the wrong way, and many people have lost track of issues they care about due to their willingness to prioritize their own personal wealth over everything else. These two facts block society from making positive change. Price went on to detail his own experience with business ethics, discussing how he led his company through the 2008 recession by tightening up its expenses. However, once the recession ended, he felt a combination of “pride and fear,” which led him away from doing the right thing until a conversation he had with his close friend, Valerie. Due to a $200 rent increase, Valerie faced the possibility of homelessness, even though she actually made more money than Price’s own employees. The frustration he felt from this conversation led him to implement a pay increase plan for his company, and he set a $70,000 base salary for Gravity Payments, a move that he described not only as a moral imperative but one that increased the profitability of the company.

Price challenged students to ask themselves how we can all work together to change the world in a meaningful way. He began by questioning the role of people with privilege, saying, “Every single person in this room, just by virtue of the fact that you’re sitting here, has some amount of privilege, some opportunity for privilege. So the key question that I wonder about is … what’s the responsibility that goes with that privilege?” Price believes that responsibility is to prepare yourself to take risks and face adversity, make yourself valuable enough to be able to take those risks, and finally take them. Then do it again. Every day there will be a temptation to take the easier, more comfortable route, Price says, but it is also part our responsibility to hold ourselves and each other accountable for resisting that temptation. He believes that everyone can be an entrepreneur; to him, entrepreneur doesn’t mean owning a business, it means innovating, pushing, taking risks, and not accepting the status quo. If we all work to do that, we can use our privilege to change the lives of the people around us, and beyond.

Caitlan Griffith ’20, Winston Center Undergraduate Assistant
William Taber ’20, Winston Ambassador

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