Thread by @ek1jp33hrtw4rf

Last night I found an unhinged wordpad doc on my desktop from about a month ago. I'm feeling more at peace now, so I'd like to share some fun facts about this guy, Dan Price.

Dan Price:
- Made millions as the CEO of a credit card processing / financial corporation
- Converted his life into a PR project by paying his employees more and taking a pay cut
- Nice looking white man with seemingly baseline progressive politics
- Violently abused his ex wife

Maybe you've seen his tweets going around and been vaguely suspicious of this American flag waving, daytime TV guest looking dude and wonder why the online left ("left"?) seems to tolerate him. I wondered that too. Again, he is the CEO of a financial corporation.

His tweets on January 6th were doing numbers (a funny expression to use because he is the CEO of a financial corporation). He has a lot of followers, so of course he excels with the usual ubiquitously paraphrased basic takes—"We should call these people terrorists" or whatever.

But he got famous for the pay equity thing. So, in Price's telling, he was confronted about his millions by an underpaid low-level employee in 2011, and it bothered him. He started giving out placating raises (very much charity-as-a-distraction-from-wealth like).

Later, in 2013, he got in a physical or at least threatening fight with employees. He was arrested. Getting cops called on you obv doesn't mean you've done anything wrong, but... this is a white millionaire who was so aggressive with company workers that the cops arrested him.

Meanwhile: "Price had been known to call meetings for the sake of humiliating employees in front of peers. He would deem them to be 'a cancer' on his corporate culture and demeaned them in ways that were deeply affecting."
hundredeightydegrees.com/investigation/…

This all leads up to 2015, when he announced that everyone working at his company would make $70k a year, and he would take a pay cut to 70k. The story so far sounds like he did it out of rich guy benevolence, or, given his troubles, even penitence. It's actually worse:

...because first of all, it appears he made that decision in reaction to his co-founder brother moving to sue him over profits. And secondly, a lot of what he rushed to brag about simply wasn't true:
*thehustle.co/dan-price-the-…
**geekwire.com/2015/records-s…
***esquire.com/lifestyle/a469…

Anyway, the announcement thing happened, and it blew up. He made sure to invite reporters from THE NEW YORK TIMES and NBC to the meeting where he told employees about their new pay. At the time, it set a record for NBC's most shared video.

To be precise, he did all this at a crucial moment in his little scumbag millionaire character arc to convert his own guilt into a new public speaking career as a saint of liberal progressive values. Suddenly everyone wanted to hear from him. So, what does he have to say?

He initially called what he did "a capitalist solution" to income inequality. He wrote "A Capitalist Solution: Why every worker in America should make $70,000" on LinkedIn linkedin.com/pulse/capitali…

He began doing what I guess he thinks is critique of capitalism ...but you'll notice there are ALWAYS qualifiers. He is concerned about "our level of capitalism," "current form of capitalism," "shareholder-centric capitalism," "21st century capitalism," "U.S. capitalism," etc.

"...why I don't go full-capitalist." (You can search all these tweets) The implication, of course, is that he can have little a capitalism, as a treat. In short, he is a capitalist. This shouldn't be surprising, because, again, HE IS THE CEO OF A FINANCIAL CORPORATION.

"We need human centered capitalism." 😒

https://twitter.com/DanPriceSeattle/status/1177385011609243650

What about socialism? Well, he sure loves to cause confusion by saying things like "Let's stop arguing about capitalism vs. socialism ... " Dude does not know what he is talking about.

https://twitter.com/DanPriceSeattle/status/1230559612459343873

As an aside, I hope I don't need to tell you how stupid this kind of take is. This guy is not our friend. He is the CEO of a financial corporation.

https://twitter.com/DanPriceSeattle/status/1271580882038517760

People will call him a "modern robin hood" and it's like no goddamn it literal bank robbers who do robin hood shit are modern robin hoods. He's not that, he is the CEO of a financial corporation.

Man... I know your point here is that isn't a "radical" (colloquially "extreme") view but yeah, no, that's not technically -radical- and you're not a radical. You're the CEO of a financial corporation. Also NO ONE SHOULD BE IN POVERTY, REGARDLESS OF WORK.

https://twitter.com/DanPriceSeattle/status/1352717650300968961

As an aside, abolish work

So now he's like a "thought leader" and ~disruptor~ guy. His employees pooled their money to buy him a tesla. “There is a strange cult-like atmosphere at Gravity. Dan thinks he has been chosen.” hundredeightydegrees.com/investigation/…

This is so bleak. Fun and meaningful like working at a credit card processing corporation?

This is the context for this guy's whole thing. It's cult shit. And it's the dominant culture. We live in a cult.

inc.com/christine-lago…

About the abuse: Someone gave a talk at TEDx UKY which, without naming him, was about writing and healing in the context of his abuse of her during their marriage. When people figured it out it was about Dan Price, it got back to him, and he and his PR people shut it down.

After the TED Talk by Kristie Colón, Gravity's head of communications said it was "potentially defamatory," the university chickened out and deleted all copies of the video without publishing it. geekwire.com/2016/internal-…

Not only did they delete the video, but they scrubbed all record of her presence from the event: ted.com/tedx/events/16…

So like who do you you trust here, the silenced accuser who fled from a marriage with no power in the way it turned out or the literal millionaire financial CEO who has turned his life and identity into a PR campaign.

Weird esquire.com/lifestyle/a469…

Anyway, all of the more nebulous stuff aside, and ignoring my own interpretations of certain aspects, I would just remind you of the fact that Dan Price is a literal millionaire financial corp CEO with a terrifying savior complex and he can fuck off.

Why talk about this? Why rain on the parade of a somewhat high profile figure making baseline pro-fight-for-15 tweets that you and thousands of others get to share while he makes his way to becoming Pete Buttigieg 3.0? I dunno, I just feel like we can do better than that.