Spanx CEO surprises employees with 2 first-class plane tickets and $10,000

Enlarge this image

Sara Blakely (shown here in 2013) founded Spanx in 2020. It was valued at $1.3 billion in a recent sale.

Paul Morigi/Getty Images North America

hide caption

toggle caption

Paul Morigi/Getty Images North America

Sara Blakely (shown here in 2013) founded Spanx in 2020. It was valued at $1.3 billion in a recent sale.

Paul Morigi/Getty Images North America

Before Spanx founder Sara Blakely became the youngest self-made woman, she sold fax machines door-to-door because she needed the money and health insurance.

Now, two decades after Blakely launched the pioneering womenswear company, global investment firm Blackstone is buying a majority stake in Spanx, which is valued at estimated $1.2 billion in the deal.

In a video posted on Instagram last week, Blakely celebrated the sale with her employees. A globe sat on a nearby table and, eventually, she asked: «Why am I spinning a globe?»

Then, before the quiet crowd, she announced the reason: because she’s bought two first-class tickets — to anywhere in the world — for each employee.

But that wasn’t all.

«You know, if you have a trip you might want to go out to a really nice dinner, you might want to go out to a really nice hotel,» Blakely said. «So with everybody’s two first-class tickets to anywhere in the world, you are each getting $10,000.»

Cheers erupted and tears flowed — and a dance party filled the room.

When employees were asked how they’d use their gifts, their answers ran the gamut: from a honeymoon in Bora Bora and an elopement in Sweden to a South African safari.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Blakely (@sarablakely)

In the video, Blakely spent time reminiscing on how far she had come since the long nights and weekends she had spent working on her idea for womens shapewear and cold-calling manufacturing plants.

«I said this company will one day be worth $20 million and everybody laughed at me,» Blakely said as she began to tear up.

Blakely took a moment to make a toast to all the women who came before her and «all the women in the world who have not had this opportunity.»

While 50% of entrepreneurs are women, she said, they only receive 2.3% of venture capital.

«In a moment like this, I think of my mom and my grandmothers and their lack of options and all the women that came before them,» Blakely said. «This would have only been a very remote dream.»