Scrappy, adaptive, inventive: A fireside chat with GoDaddy’s Bob Parsons
ASU President Michael Crow met with serial entrepreneur, philanthropist and Marine veteran Bob Parsons Tuesday at the MIX Center in downtown Mesa. They discussed Parsons’ acclaimed book, “Fire in the Hole,” which chronicles his humble beginnings in East Baltimore leading to the establishment of Parsons Technology, GoDaddy, PXG Golf and YAM Worldwide. The event attracted approximately 200 attendees and was sponsored by the Pat Tillman Veterans Center. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
GoDaddy founder, Vietnam War Marine veteran and New York Times bestselling author Bob Parsons joined Arizona State University President Michael Crow for a fireside chat at ASU’s MIX Center in Mesa on Dec. 17.
Sponsored by the Pat Tillman Veterans Center, in collaboration with the ASU Foundation, the event welcomed over 200 members of the local and university communities to hear about Parsons' incredible life as captured in his New York Times best seller "Fire in the Hole."
“The main story in the book is about what human beings are capable of doing and what they are actually designed to do if they get the chance,” Crow said.
Despite growing up in a tough East Baltimore neighborhood with a challenging family life and little to no interest in school, Parsons' journey took him from a working poor community “having absolutely nothing” to earning more than $3 billion.
Parsons founded three major companies — Parsons Technology, Go Daddy and YAM Worldwide, Inc. He and his wife, Renee, are one of the nation’s most prominent philanthropists.
After a rough start in Catholic school with barely passing grades and plenty of clashes with nuns, Parsons and a friend visited a Marine recruiter in 1968.
“This guy looked like somebody polished his face,” Parsons said. “After about an hour or so of talking about the Marine Corps ... he says to us, ‘I like you men. If you want, I’ll see if I can get you in.’”
Parsons' mother had to grant permission for him to enlist since he was only 17 years old. He reported to basic training soon after, landing in Vietnam in 1969. He was in combat within four hours of arriving. After a month of constant fighting, he was wounded and evacuated to a naval hospital in Okinawa, Japan, where he underwent two months of treatment, and ended up completing his enlistment there.
“I was preoccupied on getting back to my unit,” Parsons said. “There is a bond that’s created by being in combat with another man or woman, another soul, that transcends much of what’s even written, or much of what we know about.”
He was never able to return to Vietnam. Parsons even tried to rejoin the Marines after being discharged, to no avail.
After returning to the U.S., he worked as a laborer for a steel company until an ad for the University of Baltimore caught his attention. Using his GI Bill and a gift for math, he returned to school and graduated in 1975 with a degree in accounting.
“I didn’t know I needed a major,” Parsons said. “So I went to see this counselor ... I said, ‘Can I just select my own major?’ ... He said, ‘You can.’”
The counselor handed Parsons a book of majors. Accounting was the first program he noticed since they were in alphabetical order. The counselor asked him if he was good at math. Parsons said, “I think I am.” The counselor also asked him if he was interested in business.
“I said, 'Sure, why not.'”
Parsons worked for others for a time before he taught himself to code in his basement.
Crow noted that Parsons had an instant understanding of a complex computer programming language that he could use to perform functions and insert into business packages.
This skill set led him eventually to start Parsons Technology in 1984. The company grew to 1,000 employees and $100 million in annual revenue with 3 million customers. He sold it 10 years later to Intuit for $64 million.
In 1997, Parsons started Joe Max Technologies, which later became GoDaddy, the world’s largest internet domain name registrar. He sold a majority stake in the company in 2011 valued at $2.3 billion. In 2012, Parsons founded YAM Worldwide, a Scottsdale-based company consisting of entrepreneurship operations, sports and golf business functions, real estate, marketing, innovation and philanthropy.
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ASU's Pat Tillman Veterans Center hosted a fireside chat with serial entrepreneur, philanthropist and Marine veteran Bob Parsons on Tuesday, Dec. 17, at the Media and Immersive Experience (MIX) Center in downtown Mesa.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
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Around 200 attendees listened to a fireside chat with ASU President Michael Crow and GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons inside the MIX Center in downtown Mesa on Tuesday, Dec. 17.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
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ASU President Michael Crow and Bob Parsons talked about Parsons' life as detailed in his New York Times bestseller "Fire in the Hole" during a fireside chat held in the MIX Center in Mesa, Tuesday, Dec. 17.
Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
Parsons' success can be attributed to his scrappiness, adaptiveness and inventiveness, Crow said.
“They don’t teach any of those things in school,” Crow said. “I’m a big believer that everyone has massive ability and it’s repressed, it’s beaten out of them. All of us have this supercomputer between our ears, and then something happens along the way.”
Despite the tremendous success, Parsons said he spent most of his life haunted by PTSD.
“It is something I don’t think we think about enough when we send everybody into combat,” Parsons said. “When I came home from the war, I was a different person. I had some PTSD from growing up, but all of us do, you know. But the war added just beyond more than I could easily handle.”
With help from his wife, Parsons finally sought help by participating in a special, structured therapy that included use of psychedelics, a method of care that has been gaining traction in the U.S. It worked for him.
“Renee was first to notice it. She said, ‘I’ve never seen Bob look so happy. Never seen him wanting to go out. He has no temper,’” Parsons said. “It had been 47 years since I came home from the war, and I finally came home.”
Pat Tillman Veterans Center Executive Director Shawn Banzhaf emceed the event as part of this week’s commencement celebrations and the center’s recent milestone achievement of supporting more than 20,000 veterans and military-affiliated learners.
“A big thank you to my team at the Pat Tillman Veterans Center and our friends at the ASU Foundation for all the hard work making this event a reality,” Banzhaf said.
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