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by noduerme 1228 days ago
Look, "Go Daddy" itself is pretty weird and creepy as a name. The thing that really soured me on it and pulled my clients who were there was the fact that the "daddy" in question was out shooting elephants. Family environment is great and all, and I suppose some villagers got to eat an elephant, but I'll be damned if I'll let anyone I know pay that guy for domain registration.

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/daddy-ceo-bob-parsons-africa...
2 comments
osigurdson 1228 days ago
Go Daddy is proof that a fractured market can be consolidated with extreme marketing exposure. Wix, Monday.com, Asana, etc. are using the same playbook imo.
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noduerme 1227 days ago
This is a really good point. No doubt, they took a relatively small operation in the crowded hosting market and made it a household name. How it became a household name wasn't just over the top marketing, though... it involved scandal and negative press. I do handle design and marketing for one regional corporate client (a holdover from my design days)... and even though I'm not afraid of pushing edgy campaigns, I'd personally be pretty gun-shy about employing the sort of scorched earth stuff GoDaddy did. I'd also just be concerned about the sanity of my client.
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dopeboy 1224 days ago
Fantastic insight. Carl's Jr is another example, atleast in the early 2000s.
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enoch_r 1227 days ago
Paying people to raise social, intelligent animals in horrific environments and then slaughter them seems more morally questionable than quickly ending the life of a wild elephant. Do you ensure that the CEOs of companies you do work with are vegan?
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noduerme 1227 days ago
No, but it would be valid if I did. As it is, I avoid transacting with people who go out of their way to shoot endangered wild animals for pleasure.
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enoch_r 1227 days ago
African elephants are not endangered, especially in Zimbabwe (where he apparently shot the elephant): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63597223

Of course it's totally valid to make whatever decisions you like, but there is something disconcerting to me about how we judge our hands clean as long as we pay someone else to do horrific things to animals. Personally I think I probably do worse moral harm than killing an elephant every time I buy a dozen eggs or a Costco rotisserie chicken.

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noduerme 1223 days ago
An average African elephant weighs 12,000 pounds. A roaster weights about 10. As a yardstick, someone who goes out and kills 1200 chickens just for joy is probably a shittier person than someone who kills one to eat.
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