Some Of Her Employees Make More Than Her, And She’s The Founder Of A Startup
In today’s corporate world, it’s rare to see CEOs getting paid less money than some of their employees.
However, some executives out there are saying that it’s a much more ethical and reasonable choice to have a lower salary than some of their employees.
One of those executives is Chelsea Fagan (@faganchelsea), an author, editor, content creator, and CEO of her company, The Financial Diet.
Chelsea recently went viral after explaining in a TikTok video why she gets paid less than some of the other employees in her company, even though she’s a CEO, and people are recognizing that her reasoning makes a lot of sense.
Chelsea reveals in her video that she is the fifth highest-paid person at her company, which she co-founded, and has a base salary of $90,000. She also explains that she doesn’t like to talk about her salary and lower pay because she doesn’t want to come off as a martyr.
So, why did Chelsea decide to accept a lower salary as an executive?
“First of all, on an ethical level, the idea that executives just deserve to be paid orders of magnitude more than the average employee is obscene and not true,” says Chelsea.
“You will never be able to convince me that the average executive works harder than, like, a person being paid minimum wage at that company.”
Chelsea goes on to explain that on a practical level, having to support an executive with an overly massive salary can also put financial strain on a company.
NDABCREATIVITY – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual people
Because the executives in Chelsea’s company don’t have outrageous salaries, everyone gets to reap the benefits.
They have four-day work weeks, plenty of paid time off, and a great work-life balance. She says this is partially because her company isn’t under great financial pressure from trying to maintain inflated executive salaries.
Finally, Chelsea mentions that on a personal level, she has plenty of money to live very comfortably already.
“I have, obviously, my salary, my commission in profit sharing, I have a novel that just like, passively pays me tens of thousands of dollars, I sometimes do speaking engagements, consulting, and I’m in a duel-income, no-kid household and my husband works in tech,” she explains.
“Like, how much money do I need?”
Chelsea says that having way more money than she already does could be a negative experience for her, as she’s noticed that getting really wealthy can often be harmful to people’s mental health as it makes you more isolated and, often, less empathetic.
“I’m already pretty different than a lot of family and friends and people that I have in my life,” adds Chelsea.
“How much more removed from normal life do I want to be? Anything I want, I can have, and the idea that you should just always be striving for more money is, I think, one of the core reasons why Americans are often so unhappy, even when they do have money.”
How do you feel about Chelsea’s stance?
@faganchelsea Replying to @idkhowtobake #greenscreen
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
More About:News