5 ms·

GoDaddy CTO and Cloud VP Heads to Google

46 points by archielc 10y ago

diegorbaquero 10y ago
Good choice.
chipperyman573 10y ago
A bit unrelated, but I'm curious how GoDaddy is so big. All their products are overpriced and they don't sell anything you can't get somewhere else at a better price. Their tools are just as user-friendly as any other service as well.
- ma2rten 10y ago
  They make up for it with Superbowl ads.
- spydum 10y ago
  It's sort of like dialup modem providers.. You would be amazed at the volume of non-tech people who simply don't care. Small business needs a website and GoDaddy offers a mountain of either partner or full service offerings in one convenient place.
- tyingq 10y ago
  Marketing expertise. They are good at: - Initially low prices that go up at renewal time - Cross sell and upsell - Stickiness. Like the (since removed) 60 day lock on domains if you changed the whois info...even if it was removing privacy so you could transfer it. - Affiliate (kickback) programs - Advertising
  - kev009 10y ago
    They also use real people to call and remind people to renew and upsell. Probably annoying to HN demographic, but that is pretty savvy business foresight for the rest of the universe. Part of market building and maintance, the "ignore that customers are real people you can talk to" attitude of many shops like Google are a reality distortion.
  - joelrunyon 10y ago
    The 60 day lock is mandated by ICANN, not Godaddy. https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-03-07-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-03-07-en
    - tyingq 10y ago
      The ICANN policy is 60 days after TRANSFER. GoDaddy extended that to include "any change to whois data". ICANN, in fact, issued several advisories to stop this sort of thing.
      - davidandgoliath 10y ago
        Interestingly enough, the CIRA (.ca domains) implemented a policy that says quite the opposite. Any domain changes result in a 60 day lock.
- equalsnil 10y ago
  A long, long time ago, they were one of, if not the, cheapest domain reseller(s) out there.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    AFAICT this is exactly it, they were very very cheap. And so they captured a lot of domains, and if you asked someone about getting a domain it was "oh I got one from GoDaddy it was cheap, the service was bad but what do you expect?" and lots of people had domains from them. Then they started raising their prices until they had a nicely profitable business. They had become "established" and they continue to use name recognition to this day to attract business from people who either don't want to, or can't, shop around.
- wj 10y ago
  I think for three reasons: 1. They handle a lot of mom-and-pop business with actual live people on the phones and web chat. 2. For the "you're a computer guy, right?" relatives of those mom-and-pop business owners GoDaddy is large enough that most hosting sites have instructions for it directly. 3. Changing registrars is a pain. I know that GoDaddy is going to stay around. I can't be so sure for smaller dedicated registrars or that Google won't decide to discontinue their registration service and force me to change down the line. My time is limited and the peace of mind that I won't have to change is worth a few dollars a year.
- scurvy 10y ago
  They have north of 90% of all .com registrations either directly or through companies that they acquired.
  - csears 10y ago
    That sounds a bit high. Based on numbers from the last few months, GoDaddy has about 40m of the 127m .com domains, or 31%. Sources: http://www.registrarowl.com/report_registrar_total_domains.php?filter_selected=1&fltr_tld=5&fltr_ctype=1 http://www.registrarowl.com/report_registrar_total_domains.p... https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/domain-registry-products/zone-file/index.xhtml https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/domain-regi...
    - scurvy 10y ago
      You're ignoring all of the companies they bought.
darren0 10y ago
Now it makes sense why Elissa is on the CNCF TOC.
derFunk 10y ago
Unqualified comment, I admit, but GoDaddy as well as other domain shops seem to be stuck in the late 90s. With UI, tech and support quality. Also Namecheap, which I'm using primarily. They just put a fresh UI on top of parts of their customer acquisition facing system couple of years ago and still run the same core system.
- kev009 10y ago
  When godaddy had one of their big SOPA snafu I switched to name.com. name.com prices are good, UI is good, seems like a decent company. I guess they were bought last year by a larger company and I've noticed no negative changes. gandi.net is a little more expensive but they are highly regarded as a company.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    Name.com refused to do DNS properly if you used their bundled DNS service. They'd resolve any hostname, but if you hadn't defined it, then they'd resolve it to some search or ad page? That's why I stopped using them. Namecheap, despite the idiotic name, seems pretty good.
    - X-Istence 10y ago
      The name.com bundled DNS service no longer does this, and hasn't for a while now.
- godzillabrennus 10y ago
  I switched to buying domains from Google (http://domains.google.com http://domains.google.com) two years ago. They give free private registration, let you use google for authoritative dns and setting up Google Apps is super simple. Been a stellar choice so far!
  - albasha 10y ago
    Last I checked it was for US residents only. I couldn't sign up from Canada. Thinking about trying AWS domain registration services soon.
ruffrey 10y ago
Mildly related - whatever happened to Nodejitsu after Godaddy ate them?
hardcandy 10y ago
One of the happiest days of my life was when I finally migrated 100+ personal domains away from GoDaddy over to Namecheap and was able to close my GoDaddy account forever.
iamleppert 10y ago
So now we can expect annoying up sells and unsolicited pressure marketing whenever we buy or register for a Google product? The last straw for me with Godaddy is when they started sending me e-mails warning me my "domain was not secure" trying to get me to buy some phony domain secure service with a bundled drag and drop website builder. No thanks.
- havetocharge 10y ago
  What does the CTO have to do with sales and marketing?
betaby 10y ago
It's more interesting why Google hired her. I agree with statements above that GoDaddy is someting from 90s. GoDaddy isn't famous for tech innovations. What's kind of expertise potentially she can bring to Google?
- tdurden 10y ago
  She has only been at GoDaddy recently, there is a career before that.
- Stryder 10y ago
  They probably tried to modernize GoDaddy and the efforts didn't take. Look at the folks she's brought over from MSFT. This is just moving on to greener pastures as the market shifts its expectations. This is potentially a well timed career move as well depending on what she's going to be doing at Google.

46 points by archielc 10y ago

Good choice.

A bit unrelated, but I'm curious how GoDaddy is so big. All their products are overpriced and they don't sell anything you can't get somewhere else at a better price. Their tools are just as user-friendly as any other service as well.

ma2rten 10y ago
They make up for it with Superbowl ads.
spydum 10y ago
It's sort of like dialup modem providers.. You would be amazed at the volume of non-tech people who simply don't care. Small business needs a website and GoDaddy offers a mountain of either partner or full service offerings in one convenient place.
tyingq 10y ago
Marketing expertise. They are good at: - Initially low prices that go up at renewal time - Cross sell and upsell - Stickiness. Like the (since removed) 60 day lock on domains if you changed the whois info...even if it was removing privacy so you could transfer it. - Affiliate (kickback) programs - Advertising
- kev009 10y ago
  They also use real people to call and remind people to renew and upsell. Probably annoying to HN demographic, but that is pretty savvy business foresight for the rest of the universe. Part of market building and maintance, the "ignore that customers are real people you can talk to" attitude of many shops like Google are a reality distortion.
- joelrunyon 10y ago
  The 60 day lock is mandated by ICANN, not Godaddy. https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-03-07-en https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-03-07-en
  - tyingq 10y ago
    The ICANN policy is 60 days after TRANSFER. GoDaddy extended that to include "any change to whois data". ICANN, in fact, issued several advisories to stop this sort of thing.
    - davidandgoliath 10y ago
      Interestingly enough, the CIRA (.ca domains) implemented a policy that says quite the opposite. Any domain changes result in a 60 day lock.
equalsnil 10y ago
A long, long time ago, they were one of, if not the, cheapest domain reseller(s) out there.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  AFAICT this is exactly it, they were very very cheap. And so they captured a lot of domains, and if you asked someone about getting a domain it was "oh I got one from GoDaddy it was cheap, the service was bad but what do you expect?" and lots of people had domains from them. Then they started raising their prices until they had a nicely profitable business. They had become "established" and they continue to use name recognition to this day to attract business from people who either don't want to, or can't, shop around.
wj 10y ago
I think for three reasons: 1. They handle a lot of mom-and-pop business with actual live people on the phones and web chat. 2. For the "you're a computer guy, right?" relatives of those mom-and-pop business owners GoDaddy is large enough that most hosting sites have instructions for it directly. 3. Changing registrars is a pain. I know that GoDaddy is going to stay around. I can't be so sure for smaller dedicated registrars or that Google won't decide to discontinue their registration service and force me to change down the line. My time is limited and the peace of mind that I won't have to change is worth a few dollars a year.
scurvy 10y ago
They have north of 90% of all .com registrations either directly or through companies that they acquired.
- csears 10y ago
  That sounds a bit high. Based on numbers from the last few months, GoDaddy has about 40m of the 127m .com domains, or 31%. Sources: http://www.registrarowl.com/report_registrar_total_domains.php?filter_selected=1&fltr_tld=5&fltr_ctype=1 http://www.registrarowl.com/report_registrar_total_domains.p... https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/domain-registry-products/zone-file/index.xhtml https://www.verisign.com/en_US/channel-resources/domain-regi...
  - scurvy 10y ago
    You're ignoring all of the companies they bought.

darren0 10y ago

Now it makes sense why Elissa is on the CNCF TOC.

derFunk 10y ago

Unqualified comment, I admit, but GoDaddy as well as other domain shops seem to be stuck in the late 90s. With UI, tech and support quality. Also Namecheap, which I'm using primarily. They just put a fresh UI on top of parts of their customer acquisition facing system couple of years ago and still run the same core system.

kev009 10y ago
When godaddy had one of their big SOPA snafu I switched to name.com. name.com prices are good, UI is good, seems like a decent company. I guess they were bought last year by a larger company and I've noticed no negative changes. gandi.net is a little more expensive but they are highly regarded as a company.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Name.com refused to do DNS properly if you used their bundled DNS service. They'd resolve any hostname, but if you hadn't defined it, then they'd resolve it to some search or ad page? That's why I stopped using them. Namecheap, despite the idiotic name, seems pretty good.
  - X-Istence 10y ago
    The name.com bundled DNS service no longer does this, and hasn't for a while now.
godzillabrennus 10y ago
I switched to buying domains from Google (http://domains.google.com http://domains.google.com) two years ago. They give free private registration, let you use google for authoritative dns and setting up Google Apps is super simple. Been a stellar choice so far!
- albasha 10y ago
  Last I checked it was for US residents only. I couldn't sign up from Canada. Thinking about trying AWS domain registration services soon.

ruffrey 10y ago

Mildly related - whatever happened to Nodejitsu after Godaddy ate them?

hardcandy 10y ago

One of the happiest days of my life was when I finally migrated 100+ personal domains away from GoDaddy over to Namecheap and was able to close my GoDaddy account forever.

iamleppert 10y ago

So now we can expect annoying up sells and unsolicited pressure marketing whenever we buy or register for a Google product? The last straw for me with Godaddy is when they started sending me e-mails warning me my "domain was not secure" trying to get me to buy some phony domain secure service with a bundled drag and drop website builder. No thanks.

havetocharge 10y ago
What does the CTO have to do with sales and marketing?

betaby 10y ago

It's more interesting why Google hired her. I agree with statements above that GoDaddy is someting from 90s. GoDaddy isn't famous for tech innovations. What's kind of expertise potentially she can bring to Google?

tdurden 10y ago
She has only been at GoDaddy recently, there is a career before that.
Stryder 10y ago
They probably tried to modernize GoDaddy and the efforts didn't take. Look at the folks she's brought over from MSFT. This is just moving on to greener pastures as the market shifts its expectations. This is potentially a well timed career move as well depending on what she's going to be doing at Google.