Hirings show acquisitions, product development taking priority — Go Daddy

Fresh CEO and executives point to a firm growing by buyout and fresh products.

The prior week Go Daddy disclosed that Blake Irving, former Chief Product Officer at Yahoo, will take over as its CEO next year.

Now the firm has made two more hires, and all signs point to the firm focusing on acquisitions and product development.

First is former investment banker David Popowitz. He will be the firm’s first Senior Vice President of Corporate Development. He’s clearly being brought in to hunt for buyout targets.

Second is Raj Mukherjee as Vice President and General Manager of its Site Builder Product line. Mukherjee led Google’s modest and medium business application business.

In a press release announcing the hirings, Go Daddy notes that “Its purchased assets, in aggregate, represent in excess of $100 million in revenues.”

The wording isn’t quite clear how that’s calculated, but either way I view it as a fairly modest number.

Go Daddy’s buyout of Outright earlier this year was its first true buyout, following all.

And the firm generated $1.3 billion in sales last year, so $100 million is peanuts.

But a shift is occurring. Historically, Go Daddy has shunned outside products in favor of developing its own technologies.

These recent hirings show that’s changing.