"The hope, Murphy says, is that the company can also build a new breed of applications using the enormous amounts of data it collects on its customers, which now number more than 13 million."

That was the real value in the purchase of GD, someone finally realized the value having some 60 million domains all pointing their dns at you, even better if hosted to get urls too, can provide in terms of analytics.  Why google loves everyone using 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, you feed them that plus searches too, but gd being root/glue records for those domains also.  Everyone loves tracking and selling your data.

I worked there 03-06, and again after the new regime 13-14, and both rounds by the time I left, felt it was defeating there.  It was fun in the early Bob days, I never watched tv or sports, could really care or less what drivel marketing spun to those that do, plus growth afforded me newer, bigger networks to play with.  Win!

What was great being there at that time was building the network to keep up with that torrent of growth.  Once GD got big enough, like any bloated corporation, the cannibalistic politics and in-feeding began, new clique vs. old, and I left to make a point at the time quitting on a whim.  Everything I heard for the next 6 years was tales of woes from a company standpoint people coming and going like a revolving door, but those of the geeks that stayed (or could), did so for the love of tech and infrastructure.

After my old boss convinced me to return in '13, soon after every other new manager/vp/cxo's came with predatory replacement of others around them, even management hired sometimes not months ago, because the new goodness of the week was in and they wanted their clique around them.  Soon it became apparent it was "new goodness of the week" vs. "old dead-weight" attitude toward anyone that didn't come in with a new clique began to see almost random firings, layoffs, conniving, and in general, weirdness between everyone around them.  It got worse when all the new offices got free catering, xboxes, race tracks, etc, and the old didn't, making everyone *not* a new acqusition feel quite special once word got out.  The ghettos and castes formed quickly around where the favored new management resided.

Having been there only 6mo or so into that second run, it just got weird there like watching several Mike Judge shows combined, and I have never seen anything ever good come of clique formations in *any* company.  When the loathing upon going to work began, I quit again to just consult, leaving a good salary and healthy options, hoping to never work for a defeating corporation like that and so many others again. 

I left for almost the exact same reasons I quit 7 years before, so I beg to differ with wired that anything but the faces have changed.  Parsons was at least flamboyantly odd in a Rick James sort of way to keep it interesting and growing then, now it was more faceless and disappointing in a Microsoft or General Motors sort of way.

They needed a fresh start, but hiring the best of yesteryear from Microsoft and Yahoo didn't seem too bright.  It quickly devolved to just another mediocre corporation with infighting, throwing buzzwords, thrashing around inside and out to remain relevant where $3/mo hosting accounts and cheap domains aren't that special anymore.  Good or bad, people remember GD for the controversy, without it's just a grind with a sugar coating on the outside and no discernible identity.

-mb


On 05/27/2015 07:38 AM, Keith Smith wrote: