GoDaddy Reveals Salary Gender Gap In New Twist On Diversity Reports

A GoDaddy compensation analysis released Wednesday exposed female executives were paid at a rate almost 4 percent less than their male counterparts.
The report also found throughout the total company, women are actually compensated .28 percent more than men. But the gap persists for women in technical roles: Women in technical positions make .11 percent less than men, while women in non-technical roles make .35 percent more than men.
GoDaddy, a web hosting and domain company, is most well-known for its controversial Super Bowl ads featuring women wearing little clothing. Though the company has attempted to reverse its image in the past two years, it’s surprising the pay gap in the company is so small.
The numbers even took the company’s CEO Blake Irving off guard.
“I think I expected a larger disparity,” said Irving in an interview with TechCrunch. “By making this information available to the industry, we will hopefully make other companies follow suit.”
As Silicon Valley companies increasingly release statistics about the gender and racial makeup of their companies, GoDaddy wants to take it to the next level. Rather than releasing a traditional diversity report, GoDaddy released the results of a compensation audit to see if there was a difference between how it paid male and female employees.
Irving said from GoDaddy’s study, the company has learned it needs to evaluate what is affecting the pay of its most senior employees. He said there are many factors that could be causing this disparity, such as what he calls “paying it backward.” As women move from one job to another, Irving said their lower salaries are passed along with them.
Though other companies have said they internally audit for gender bias in pay, GoDaddy is the first public tech company to publish these results, Irving said. However the report did not explore how other forms of diversity — such as race and ethnicity — impact pay.
The report comes as prominent tech diversity activist Erica Baker calls on tech companies to extend diversity efforts beyond gender. Irving said this report is just a starting point, and that future posts would incorporate data on race and ethnicity.
“We’re going to learn how to cut the data and go from there,” Irving said.
Irving expects to include that data in reports in the next year or two. The company has committed to reporting these numbers every year.