The world’s largest provider of web hosting and domain names, Go Daddy, has hopes of expanding their company to the Northwest. But first executives need to pick a central location: Kirkland or Bellevue.
While the company has several Kirkland connections – CEO Blake Irving was a former Kirkland resident, International Senior Vice President James Carroll was former neighbors with Councilwoman Amy Walen, and a handful of Go Daddy employees work at its new temporary location at Carillon Point – the company, which serves more than 11 million customers, still has some negotiating to do.
Part of those negotiations occurred at the Woodmark Hotel on Tuesday afternoon, when Go Daddy executives met with Mayor Joan McBride and Councilwoman Amy Walen.
The council members told company officials that they hope Go Daddy chooses Kirkland for their newest Northwest location.
“We have talented citizens, grade schools, a great quality of life, commitment to parks and open space and what we think is a friendly business environment, but still a very reasonable and environmentally friendly environment,” said Walen. “This is exactly the kind of business we want.”
Carroll described the Eastside as a “hotbed for talent. This is really where people want to live and it’s where people will live and raise families.”
While Carroll couldn’t disclose how many new employees the company is seeking to hire, he said the presence of big tech-companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and eBay, assures him of the Internet and web talent around the area.
The permanent expansion, wherever executives may choose, is expected to open in June, according to a Go Daddy press release.
“I think what we’re looking at is to be very aggressive, both in terms of finding the right talent and finding the right location,” said Auguste Goldman, chief of people officer at Go Daddy.
In addition to garnering Washington’s technological talent, Go Daddy plans to make the Eastside location a place to kick-off international products and services.
“Looking at the history of companies like Microsoft in the region, they’re really one of the first companies to go international in a big way,” said Carroll.
Goldman said their Eastside location will be the headquarters around some of Go Daddy’s niche products and services they intend to develop.
Go Daddy is a private company that is backed by KKR, Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. Its mission is to help small businesses create their “digital identity, build websites and harness the power of the Internet.”
“The reason to join Go Daddy is simple … you can make a difference at a company that is hell-bent on changing the world,” Irving said in a press release. “We have the opportunity to help small businesses in ways no one else in the space is doing right now. This is a chance to change lives in profound ways, to expand the world’s economy by empowering people to start, grow and successfully run their small businesses. I’ve yet to meet a great engineer or developer who doesn’t want to leave their mark on this world in a meaningful way.”
Before Irving took over as Go Daddy CEO in January, he was the former chief product officer at Yahoo! and a longtime Microsoft executive. In February, he expanded offices in Silicon Valley; acquired M.dot, a mobile application that allows users to create a website from a smart phone; and hired a slew of veteran executives from Microsoft, Google, Amazon and eBay, among others.
Three of the eight new hires are located at the temporary Kirkland location and are former Microsoft employees. That includes Arnold Blinn, chief architect; Rick Eames, the senior vice president of design and user experience; and Scott Isaacs, distinguished engineer.
