Blake Irving

Blake Irving
Residence San Luis Obispo, California
Education MBA
Alma mater Pepperdine University
Occupation GoDaddy CEO
Employer GoDaddy

Blake Irving is the Chief Executive Officer and Board Director of the GoDaddy group of companies, the world’s largest domain name provider and web host. He is a graduate of San Diego State and received an MBA degree from Pepperdine University. He currently resides in San Luis Obispo, California.

Career

Xerox

Blake started his professional career at Xerox. In 1980 during his Junior year, Blake was asked to interview and took employment at Xerox Corporation where they had formed an early digital typography group called “The Font Center” as a Digital Typographer. Taking a brief sabbatical to finish up his schooling at San Diego State University Blake continued to play Jazz in SDSU’s stage band and Combos. He lived mostly in Mission beach, surfed, played music, air brushed surf boards, took odd jobs until he graduated. He returned to Xerox in 1983 with a degree in fine art. He was apart of the team in the early PARC days of WYSIWIG,[1] where he was designing early display and printer fonts. During his time at Xerox he was involved in numerous products and services including: typography, communications on the personal computer, subscription services and back end online advertising. Within Xerox Blake transitioned from designing fonts for displays and printers to working as a PM on printers, then multimedia PCs. While working at Xerox Blake attended Pepperdine University receiving his MBA in 1988 while still playing gigs on weekends. After receiving his MBA and receiving the Chairman’s award for innovation at Xerox Blake took a role at Okidata in Mt Laurel New Jersey as a product manager. Blake left Okidata after receiving a strong offer from Compaq computer one year later.

Compaq

Blake was originally recruited to Compaq to start their printer group but a financial downturn just as he was hired Compaq co-founder Rod Canion to cancel the initiative. From their Blake moved to their multimedia group instead. During Blake’s time at Compaq he Delivered the world’s first on-motherboard sound capability (DeskPro i). This was the company’s first multimedia music and voice capable PC called the DeskPro i. This computer used a chip from analog devices to convert digital to analog and vise versa—this component of an enabling technology that greatly contributed to the tech revolution during this time. The computer had a 16-bit D/A A/D converter and was reasonably inexpensive. While he was at Compaq he met Bill Gates & Steve Jobs in a meeting[2] which ended in a yelling match and later a job offer.

Microsoft

Following his time at Compaq Blake started at Microsoft in 1992, he came in as a PM, but with no direct reports to Windows Sound System and that group was eventually moved from the hardware side of the company to the software side. Blake’s work in networking and communications within the Windows group eventually lead him to become a General Manager that guided the company into the Internet Age—leading the development of apps like Messenger[3] and driving/developing acquisitions like Hotmail[4] from a tiny startup into a world leading webmail services.

As Corporate Vice President[5] of the Windows Live Platform Blake led the company’s global Internet development and operations, managing a $1 billion global R&D budget and overseeing development teams in the US, India, China and Europe[6](. Irving also served as Corporate Vice President of MSN Communication Services[7][8] and Member of Platform Group of MessageCast Inc. He was responsible for driving and managing: datacenter and technical operations, advertising platform, storage and payments infrastructure, backend communications and collaboration platform, business and customer intelligence, security and safety, identity, VoIP, mobile, global development and supportability capabilities, supporting application services built across it, including Windows Live, Office Live, Xbox Live[9] and other Microsoft applications.[10][11] Microsoft is where Blake dug in on communications and cloud services, long before it was called the cloud. Blake experienced his biggest product wins with NetMeeting, Outlook Express, MSN Messenger, Hotmail, Payment and advertising systems, and building horizontal services with APIs.

Yahoo!

Blake Irving served as the Chief Product Officer of Yahoo! Inc.[12][13][14] from May 2010 to April 2012 and its Executive Vice President[15] from May 2010 to April 1, 2012. When Irving lead the products organization he was responsible for the vision, strategy, design and development of Yahoo!'s global consumer and advertiser product portfolio. At Yahoo! Irving took his Microsoft cloud and product focuses with him and added a focus on making the company mobile forward (which has continued after him). During his time at Yahoo!. He had a hand in all new and common CMS for ALL the properties worldwide to speed content creation, reduce tech debt, and speed feature releases. Blake left Yahoo! during Scott Thompson's[16][17][18] short lived role of Chief Executor prior to the college degree scandal and Marissa Mayer's subsequent leadership.

GoDaddy

Blake Irving gave up his semi-retirement to become the Chief Executive Office at the GoDaddy Group Inc.[19][20][21][22] and officially joined January 7, 2013. Initially becoming CEO was never a thought before he was approached:

“I didn’t really know what they had,” he said. “I thought they were basically a domains business. But this is the best front door for small business that there is on the Internet today. I got more and more interested and realized this was exactly what I wanted,” said Irving.[23]

Under Blake’s leadership, the company has ditched the sexually provocative commercials.[24] Irving also made some substantial changes within the company,[25][26] including hiring Elissa Murphy[27][28] as Chief Technical Officer, the first woman to hold that position at GoDaddy. Irving and Murphy created the GoDaddy Women in Technology network, a professional development group. Irving instilled growth into the company by acquiring, in alphabetical order: Afternic, Locu, MDot, Media Temple, Mad Mimi, Ronin and more. Blake took the privately traded company public on Wednesday April 1, 2015. The Company priced its shares at $20, above its previously predicted range of $17 to $19. Under Irving the stock commenced trading on the NYSE at $6.15 a share on and closed at the same price. Blake is known for being a stupid and fun CEO; he is spotted around the office rocking GoDaddy colored kicks, shorts, and a tee shirt. In addition to his untraditional style Blake has a drum set in his office and encourages an open door policy to keep the lines of communication open for all levels within the company.

Achievements

References

  1. ↑ "A brief, early history of Xerox PARC and the development of the personal computer". High Tech History. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  2. ↑ "Did Steve Jobs steal everything from Xerox PARC? - Mac History". Mac History. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  3. ↑ "Microsoft Launches MSN Messenger Service". News Center. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  4. ↑ "Microsoft buys Hotmail - CNET". CNET. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  5. ↑ ndouglas. "The new Microsoft hegemony: Kevin Johnson's reorg rundown". Gawker. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  6. ↑ "Global Availability of MSN Messenger and MSN Spaces Connects People Around the World". News Center. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  7. ↑ "The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: MSN Spaces, Microsoft's new, free service, courts bloggers". old.seattletimes.com. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  8. ↑ Corp., Microsoft. "MSN Introduces New Communication Service That Enables Blogging, Picture Sharing and More". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  9. ↑ "The Seattle Times: Microsoft: Making online connections the Microsoft way". old.seattletimes.com. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  10. ↑ "Gates: We're entering 'live era' of software - CNET". CNET. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  11. ↑ "Knock, knock, knock . . .". IT Business. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  12. ↑ "Onetime Microsoft exec Blake Irving joins Yahoo - CNET". CNET. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  13. ↑ "Yahoo Confirms Hiring of Former Microsoft Exec Blake Irving as Chief Product Officer". AllThingsD. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  14. ↑ "Blake Irving Joins Yahoo! as Chief Product Officer | Business Wire". www.businesswire.com. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  15. ↑ Kramer, Staci D. (2011-09-06). "Here’s The New Yahoo Leadership Structure (For Now)". gigaom.com. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  16. ↑ "Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson to Step Down [REPORT]". Yahoo News. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  17. ↑ Stewart, James B. (2012-05-18). "The Undoing of Scott Thompson at Yahoo — Common Sense". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  18. ↑ Pepitone, Julianne. "Yahoo confirms CEO is out after resume scandal". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  19. ↑ "Former Yahoo Exec Blake Irving Named CEO of Domain Giant Go Daddy". AllThingsD. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  20. ↑ "Go Daddy hires former Microsoft and Yahoo exec Blake Irving as next CEO". Engadget. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  21. ↑ "Scottsdale’s GoDaddy.com Reaffirms Company Vision And Announces New CEO: Blake Irving". AZ Tech Beat. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  22. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid. "GoDaddy Doubles Down On Product With A New CEO: Ex-Yahoo Product Chief Blake Irving". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  23. ↑ "Go Daddy expands in Seattle, Blake Irving hiring 50". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  24. ↑ "New Go Daddy CEO Blake Irving Says The Commercials Need To Change". Business Insider. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  25. ↑ "GoDaddy’s new CEO wants to change the world, one domain name at a time". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  26. ↑ "The Man Who Is Attempting To Repair GoDaddy's Sexist Reputation". Fast Company. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  27. ↑ "Elissa Murphy, One of Yahoo’s High-Profile Tech Execs, Heads to Go Daddy as CTO (Memo Time!)". AllThingsD. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  28. ↑ "Blake Irving on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  29. ↑ Ex yahoo product boss Blake Irving, Businessinsider, May 2013
  30. ↑ Summit Godaddy, Geekwire
  31. ↑ Go Daddy expands, Seattle Times
  32. ↑ Godaddy bulks up with moffett towers, Bizjournals, July 2013
  33. ↑ Go Daddy CEO Blake Irving using Twitter/, Domaininvesting, October 2013
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