I was going to post person by person, but I figured a general post with all the info would be a better option. So here it goes...
We're definitely excited about the move. We know GoDaddy may have had a not so stellar reputation in the past, but we're very happy with the changes they've made this year. Along with that, we are very happy to get the funding and resources we need to make bigger and better products. We want to put out better products with the same style and flare, and we can now do it a lot better and a lot faster. Our support isn't changing, products aren't changing, and the only real big change today is that we're getting cake and lunch on the house.
I keep seeing allusions to this new, improved GoDaddy...can you provide some details about this? I haven't heard anything about it since moving my domains away from them after the SOPA/elephant stuff.
I know MediaTemple is a good company and wouldn't sell to GoDaddy without reason, so hopefully you can provide some solid justification for staying with you. The current FAQ/blog post don't address GoDaddy's toxic reputation in the tech community at all.
Are you sure about that? There's an answer to the very question "What about GoDaddy’s reputation in the tech community?"
"They have overhauled their leadership team and attracted tech talent from the best-of-the-best. We love 'the new GoDaddy' that CEO Blake Irving and his team have created, especially their new approach with advertising, product focus and UX."
-- http://weblog.mediatemple.net/2013/10/15/faqs-about-the-goda...
GoDaddy appears to be a very different company than it was a year ago, so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Matt, first of all, thanks to you and your team for posting in the comments on sites like HN, TechCrunch, and all the other sites where the news is starting to hit the tech community. I know it can't be easy to read so many critical comments against a company that I am sure has been a great place for you to work at.
However, I think trying to spin things as "everything at (mt) will be the same... only better" is a bit of a disservice to the tech community you are trying to reach out to, which is inherently more savvy about the reasoning and justification behind the acquisition itself.
In short: No company ever sets out to acquire another company to just keep things the same.
I do not doubt that in the short term, not much will change. But starting within the next year or so, there is no doubt in anyone's minds that the combined leadership team of GD and (mt) will begin to capitalize on business, product and technological "synergies" to help increase the bottom line.
That's not a knock against you, GD, (mt) or anyone. That's just business.
But what does that mean for all of your existing (mt) customers?
GoDaddy's modus operandi of profit maximization through questionable-at-best marketing practices, minimizing costs in customer and technical support, and taking any short cuts possible even at the detriment of the customer, does appear completely at odds with the high value of support and refined products that (mt) had prided itself over the years.
So the $400M question (or however much the acquisition was for) is: can these vastly different approaches of your business models be reconciled at all? Or will one way end up "winning out" over the other way? And if it's the latter, who will end up "winning out"... the GoDaddy way, or the (mt) way?
I do apologize if I come up to some of my own conclusions ahead of time, but I hope you guys can prove me wrong. But as I am now an outsider looking in, it ultimately won't make too much of a difference to me -- I actually have been in the process (and am nearly complete) in moving all of my clients off of GoDaddy to AWS (for completely unrelated reasons, mostly dealing with pricing).
But as someone who had been a customer for over 8 years and as someone who had been an advocate for (mt), I couldn't help from having the feeling of "whew, I just dodged a bullet" after hearing this news.
Good question. Some things I will have answers for, others I'm not 100% on. I'll go point by point.
1. The spin isn't really intended. GoDaddy is a huge fan of our services, and they intend to keep it independent so that our team can improve on what we currently have. We'll also be able to hire better people (not putting our team down), but it's always been the motto here to hire people that are smarter than us.
2. Existing customers- nothing is changing. Seriously. Prices aren't going up, control panel isn't changing, and we're not going to be emailing you every day.
3. Our team said yes to this merger because they like the direction their new team is taking. If we can inject some of our flair into what they are doing, even better. In the end though, you aren't going to see a combination of the logos.
4. "winning out" - If i could predict the future, I'd be traveling the world comfortably right now. :) I've been here for three years now, and I trust that things aren't going in that direction.
I appreciate the concern, and we're impressed that so many people care (even if sentiment sways negatively). We're not here to ride our horses into the sunset with bags of money draped to our saddles, we're here to compete in the hosting space. We have always been known for our stellar service, and we are ready to be known for a stellar product.
But just as some crimes aren't ever forgiven, I think few people will ever forgive GoDaddy (and rightly so).
A few things that I think is despised:
- Support for SOPA
- Constant upsales, borderline spam
- Being against Net Neutrality
- Support for PIPA
- A marketing strategy which begins and ends with biki-girls
Complaints about bad performance, bad support and expense products are also common.[1]
As an extra bonus go Daddy's founder, Bob Parsons, goes to Africa every year to kill elephants who he says are ruining crops (others say he's a rich idiot American who likes shooting elephants for fun).[2][3]
I admire your courage and honesty to directly engage with the GoDaddy detractors (of which I am one, sorry). Maybe you can prove us all wrong and help improve them from within.
Appreciate it. I know we can. Our medium size team just got a lot bigger. I think our engineers are the most excited about this because they'll be able to get so much more work done.
We're definitely excited about the move. We know GoDaddy may have had a not so stellar reputation in the past, but we're very happy with the changes they've made this year. Along with that, we are very happy to get the funding and resources we need to make bigger and better products. We want to put out better products with the same style and flare, and we can now do it a lot better and a lot faster. Our support isn't changing, products aren't changing, and the only real big change today is that we're getting cake and lunch on the house.
Feel free to shoot any questions at me, or check out our weblog for a FAQ http://weblog.mediatemple.net/2013/10/15/faqs-about-the-goda...