Who is the Greatest Domainer of All Time?

I read an interesting article on The Domains asking the readers who they thought was the greatest domainer of all time. Why was it interesting? Because it didn’t ask the most important question, “By what measure?”

For instance, are we measuring someone’s success by the amount of money they earn or amount of profit? Whether they have built a sustainable business or sold one off high value domains? How about whether they actually give anything back to the industry versus take, take and then take some more? Or, how about how they treat others that may not be as monetarily successful as they are?

Can a person be regarded as “the greatest” if their personal life is a complete mess? They may have even sold a lot of high value domains and yet not have much to show for it after multiple family failures.

I met a person at the last NamesCon conference in Las Vegas that had sold millions of dollars’ worth of domains and yet, shared with me that they were about to lose their house, had massive credit card debts and couldn’t put food on the table. On the outside, people thought they were a massive success story but they were struggling because the money went to their head and they thought that everything they touched would turn to gold…..sadly it didn’t.

There’s a great line that actor Martin Sheen said in the movie Wallstreet, “I don’t judge a man by the size of their wallet.”

Martin Luther King Jr. said (paraphrased), “I have a dream that people will not be judged by the colour of their skin (ie. what they look like) but by the content of their character.”

So who is the most successful domain owner of all time? In my opinion, it’s not about the money or how flashy someone may behave at a conference but as the two above quotes suggest, it’s more about who they are when they are by themselves. When no one else can find out, do they rest easy in the knowledge they’ve tried to improve the lives of those around them?

Should a person that builds a company while trashing relationships and devouring staff be regarded as our industry’s hero? Or how about a person that openly declared to me that they will tell domain owners whatever they want to hear and then set the payout levels down to increase their own profits?

Or how about a person that ran arbitrage traffic on top of their clients domain names and then skimmed off the revenue before passing on the balance? Many of the domains were permenantly blocked by the tier 1 providers but who cares, as long as they were earning profits. This person earned a lot of money so are they the greatest?

Or is the greatest domain owner of all time a person who quietly goes about giving back to the industry and innovates for the betterment of others? A person of character that everyone speaks highly of, not necessarily due to their outward success but how they always treat others with respect and kindness.

If you were to judge who the greatest domainer is on this basis then the list of people that I know in the industry that would qualify would be very long. One of the wonderful things about the domain industry is that it’s attracted some truly great people that are selfless and often use their domain earnings for things such as supporting orphanages, the down and out, soup kitchens and those that may have lost their jobs.

These people are the true greats and what’s more you only get to know just how great they are when you spend time hearing about their life’s journey. So I would like to nominate the silent majority of domain investors that in my opinion are the real greats.