Bob Parsons is bucking the tech-bro stereotype in the industry that helped make him a billionaire. From an impoverished childhood in Baltimore, Parsons became a US Marine and then founded web-hosting pioneer GoDaddy Inc.
He’s eschewing pursuits like AI startups and space endeavors to focus on veterans causes.
“Our goal is to donate a million bucks every other week,” Parsons, 72, said in a Bloomberg Television interview ahead of Saturday’s US Veterans Day holiday. “And we do that.”
Parsons is estimated to be worth more than $3 billion, and he distributes funds through the Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation, named for him and his wife. The grants go to organizations working on “homelessness, medical care, LGBTQ youth, education and the needs of wounded veterans and military families,” according to his website.
Parsons’s background is unconventional among tech founders known for career trajectories taking them from dropout status at Ivy League schools to amassing billions in Silicon Valley. Parsons was wounded during the Vietnam War and received a Purple Heart, among other decorations. He also skipped a move to California and built his fortune creating Tempe, Arizona-based GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain-name registrar. He now runs YAM Worldwide, whose holdings include golf company PXG.
“We try to support veterans organizations,” Parsons said. “And we try to support a lot of organizations having difficulty raising funds, and they are — well, it would be just us, if we support them. You look for an organization like that, you’ll find us.”
In total, Parsons has donated more than $300 million to various causes, with $100 million to Semper Fi, the veterans organization founded by military spouses to support combat-wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans and military families. He has also signed onto the Giving Pledge, the charitable effort created by Warren Buffett, Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates.
He singled out post-traumatic stress disorder as one challenge that technology may never be able to fix.
“Technology is never going to touch PTSD,” said Parsons, who sold GoDaddy to private equity buyers including KKR Co. in 2011. “It’s brutal. A lot of the loneliness is self imposed because with PTSD you never feel like you belong.”