Bob Parsons

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Bob (Robert) Parsons (born 1950) is the CEO and founder of domain registrar and web host Go Daddy which owns registrars Wild West Domains and Blue Razor Domains, the domain privacy company Domains by Proxy, and the registration authority Starfield Technologies.

Contents

[edit] Childhood

Parsons was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Parsons also grew up in Baltimore Maryland where he was not a particularly great student.[1] The draft loomed, and Parsons had no plans to go to college, so he followed many of his friends and enlisted in the Military so he could control the branch and military job he would have during his service.[2]

[edit] Military Service

In 1968, Parsons joined the United States Marines in Baltimore where he enlisted prior to graduating from high school[3] and was assigned to the 26th Marine Regiment which was attached and operated as part of the U.S. 1st Marine Division. In 1969, he did a tour of duty in Vietnam serving as a rifleman in Quang Nam Province.[4] In Vietnam, Parsons' focus was simple: "My goal then became each and every day just to make it to mail call."[3][4] While walking second point during night ambush, Parsons tripped a wire the point man somehow stepped over, detonating an explosive. [2] As a result he was "medically evacuated from Hill 190."[3] After being wounded Parsons spent two months at the Naval hospital in Yokosuka, Japan for recuperation. He then received orders back to his rifle company but on his way, through a fluke, was assigned to military intelligence as a courier of classified documents. He returned to Vietnam several more times but always as a courier and never again in a combat role. As a result of his service and injury he earned the Combat Action Ribbon, the Vietnam Gallantry Cross, and the Purple Heart.[2]

[edit] Education

After discharge, Parsons returned home and took up work in a steel mill.[1] However, he soon took advantage of the education benefits he earned in the military and enrolled in the accounting program at the University of Baltimore.[2] Parsons credits his military service with providing him the focus to excel in his studies. "The Marine Corps taught me and gave me the sense of doing things right and more importantly I got confidence,"[3] he said. He graduated magna cum laude in accounting in 1975.[1] However, prior to graduation Parsons picked up a book on programming and began experimenting[3] with what would be his long-term career: software.

[edit] Parsons Technology

Parsons focused on his career, earned his CPA, and worked for an equipment leasing company by day[2] while programming by night.[5] In 1984, he founded Parsons Technology in Cedar Rapids, IA and began selling MoneyCounts, a home accounting program that he initially sold for $99 per copy. By his third edition, Parsons was inspired by Borland's success selling Turbo Pascal for much less than the competition and began charging $12 per copy. He also focused his efforts on direct sales rather than channel sales.[5] In late 1987, Parsons was able to quit his job and focus completely on selling and programming MoneyCounts.[5] Parsons then branched into other markets when he partnered with Craig Rairdin to sell QuickVerse, Rairdin's Bible searching program. Parsons and Rairdin employed the same low cost direct market model that Parsons had successfully pioneered with MoneyCounts.[6][7]

Eventually, Parsons Technology grew to be a 1,000-employee privately held company. The company focused on two main lines, the accounting line that grew out of MoneyCounts and included Personal Tax Edge (tax preparation software), It's Legal, State Tax Edge, and other titles, and the Church Division which sold QuickVerse, Membership Plus, Family Origins, Christian Clip Art, and other related programs. On September 27 1994, Parsons completed the sale of Parsons Technology to Intuit for $67.3 million.[8] Later, Intuit sold the software from the Church Division to Broderbund[9] and is now owned by FindEx.[10]

[edit] GoDaddy

In the agreement with Intuit, Parsons had agreed to take a year off from work, during which time he moved to Arizona. In 1997, Parsons founded Go Daddy (briefly named Jomax Technologies). Bob Parsons has shifted his business practices, and with Go Daddy being such a huge company, he started paying mega bucks to have off color TV commercials on the air during football games such as the super bowl. At least one of those commercials was banned by the NFL after it aired only 1 time.[11]

[edit] Guantanamo Bay Blog Controversy

In June 2005, Parsons generated controversy by saying that he did not believe the interrogation methods used by the United States at Guantanamo were inappropriate.[12][13][14] Following feedback in the comments section of the post, he retracted his statements, saying "After looking at the references...and giving the matter some thought, I tend to agree and think that the there's a good argument for changing the way in which prisoners at Gitmo are interrogated."[15]

[edit] Radio show

Bob hosts a weekly radio show on the Internet originally called Life Online with Bob Parsons. The title has now been changed to "GoDaddy Live."

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Sanders, Monica (2004). Rags to Riches: Bob Parsons, Founder of GoDaddy.com. LegalZoom. Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  2. ^ a b c d e Jackson, Ron (October 2004). "Underachiever to Overlord: Go Daddy's Bob Parsons Started Slow Then Built Two Business Empires". Domain Name Journal. Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  3. ^ a b c d e David, Andersen; Lameen Witter. "Former Marine, Go Daddy CEO Talks About His Rise to Success", Marine Corps News, 2006-02-17. Retrieved on 2006-06-02. 
  4. ^ a b Draper, John (2005-12-07). "GoDaddy's Remarkable Daddy". Worthwhile 1 (6). Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  5. ^ a b c Rairdin, Craig (2005-04-27). How I Got Into this Mess. Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  6. ^ Strom, Ron (2005-02-09). GoDaddy.com chief: From Bible to breasts. WorldNetDaily.com. Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  7. ^ Editor (2005-02-10). Creator of QuickVerse speaks about GoDaddy and Parsons. Red State Patriot. Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  8. ^ Form:10-Q. SEC Edgar Filing Information (1996-06-12). Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  9. ^ Form:10-Q. SEC Edgar Filing Information (1997-06-13). Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  10. ^ Form:10KSB. SEC Edgar Filing Information (2001-04-16). Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  11. ^ Interview with Bob Parsons, Go Daddy. Dot Journal. Retrieved on 2006-05-09.
  12. ^ Parsons, Bob (2005-06-19). Close Gitmo? No Way. Hot Points. Note: page has since been deleted.
  13. ^ McCarthy, Jamie (2005-06-21). Why I'm No Longer a GoDaddy Customer. Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  14. ^ McEvoy, Christopher Sean (2005-06-20). NoGoDaddy. Retrieved on 2006-06-02.
  15. ^ Anonymous (Tunesmith) (2005-06-20). GoDaddy president retracts pro-torture blog posting. Retrieved on 2006-06-02.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://india.smashits.com/wikipedia/Bob_Parsons"
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