GoDaddy’s $2 Million Christmas Bash (Recession? What Recession?)
By Anna Johnson on December 24th, 2008Recession? What recession? While many Internet companies will remember 2008 as terrible year in which consumer demand – and sales and profits – plummeted (if they live to tell the tale), GoDaddy.com is one company that will remember 2008 as a boom year. Indeed, sales at the world’s biggest domain name registrar were up by 42 percent this year, with revenues in the vicinity of $500 million.
GoDaddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons showed his appreciation to the people who made it happen (i.e. GoDaddy’s staff) by treating them to a $2 million holiday party in Phoenix, Arizona earlier this month.
Staged at Chase Field (home of the Arizona Diamondbacks major league baseball team), the party featured live performances by Joan Jett, .38 Special and comedian Sinbad. The party also saw Parsons periodically give out prizes consisting of $1,000, $5,000 and free motorcycles.
Parsons told party attendees the extravaganza was possible because GoDaddy was part of a new world order. He emphasized that GoDaddy had issued no subprime loans, manufactured no cars that didn’t sell, and hadn’t asked for any bailouts:
“That’s all part of the old order. We’re helping put millions of people on the Internet so they can be part of the new order… The new order, the new economy is going to allow America to rise from the ashes of this recession.”
Being privately held, GoDaddy doesn’t need to justify the cost of its party. And, as Bob Parsons said himself, he could have kept the $2 million for himself. Instead, he used it for his staff. Good one.
It will be interesting to see how GoDaddy performs next year. Not only are the effects of the recession expected to spread, but the domain name business itself will change as ICANN approves more domain name extensions…
