For most of us, a healthy bonus at work wouldn't go amiss - and employees at one company got more than their fair share from their generous boss. In a video from last year, which has resurfaced, the chief executive and inventor of American shapewear brand Spanx is seen surprising her staff with two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world and $10,000 (£8,000) each.
In the caption of the video posted on CEO Sara Blakely's Instagram page in October 2021, the mum-of-four explains that the surprise gifts are in celebration of Spanx's partnership with Blackstone, an investment giant which purchased a majority stake in the company, leading to a valuation of $1.2 billion.
"When I started the company in Virginia Highlands on the whiteboard in my room, I wrote a goal down and I said this company will one day be worth $20 million and everybody laughed at me, and I said 'I really believe that,'" Blakely tells her employees at the start of the clip.
The entrepreneur then talks proudly of how far the company has come, since she founded it in Atlanta, Georgia, over two decades ago with just $5,000 in savings. She continues: "I think it's a really big moment in time for women and this marks a moment for female entrepreneurs. There aren't enough women being funded out there, there aren't enough women getting the support."
Her first announcement that she's bought everyone in the room two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world is met with gasps and cheers, and the camera pans to employees who are tearful and laughing in disbelief.
"If you go on a trip, you might want to go out to a really nice dinner, you might want to go out to a really nice hotel. So, with everybody's two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world, you are each getting $10,000," she says, amid screams and whoops.
"Oh my God," someone can be heard saying, while another says, "Wow." Blakely came up with the idea for SPANX when she was 27. While getting ready for a party, she wanted to achieve a "smooth look" under a pair of white trousers. She decided to cut the feet of a pair of control top tights and the rest is history. In March 2012, Forbes Magazine crowned her the world's youngest self-made billionaire.
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