He's parading around as an altruistic person when the evidence seems to suggest he's not. Many people argued that giving arbitrary raises is a bad way to run a business and probably unsustainable. If the raises were given for reasons besides he claimed, it gives much more credence to those arguments.
It matters very little if he is on the whole "a good person" (I make no claim one way or the other). What is interesting to most including myself is how his 70k minimum salary works for the company.
That act alone, whatever the reason, is likely a "good" thing in that he is sacrificing his own income to help others less fortunate for himself. If there are ulterior motives, or if he has had a lifetime of bad deeds until now I'm not terribly interested.
Can't say for certain without seeing the financials but having the real reason for pay increases raises red flags for me. I view it as a short-term gamble that could potentially lead to future layoffs/bankruptcy. In a worst case scenario, would it still be okay to you if the pay increases were granted because of personal circumstance and later led to people losing their jobs?
I agree that a CEO's decision based on personal issues is bad for a company. For Gravity specifically, is there evidence that it extends beyond this one issue?
And, in the context of this one issue at Gravity, it seems to have been a good move (at least what's been made public).
Pretty much every long-standing, famous CEO has done something for a personal reason (Jobs' personal vendetta against Samsung/Android for "ripping off" iOS is an example). That doesn't mean most of their decisions are personal, or that they can't run a company incredibly well.
Jobs' personal vendetta can easily be interpreted as public theatrics for business reasons. Making a business decision because you are personally getting sued is completely different.
Let me frame it this way. Let's say I was working there and thought I was getting underpaid. I started interviewing, found a job paying 65k, and was about to take it. There's some grand announcement about how everyone will get 70k and I decide, great, I'll stay. Had I been provided with what looks to be the real reason behind the raise, I may have elected to jump ship for less money.
