poll Who is the greatest domain investor of all time? 2021 edition

[equity78]

It’s been 7 years since we did a poll on the greatest domain name investor of all time on TheDomains.com. Frank Schilling won back in 2014. Over the last 7 years many new investors have come into the business.

Some investors might be perceived differently today than during the last poll, so here is the 2021 poll.

Sometimes people ask what is meant? Like so and so might not have made as much money but they lifted people up or they were a nicer human being.

This is who is the greatest domain investor of all time, the selling, sales attained, marketing and name selection skills should be what is considered.

Results of last poll

• Frank Schilling (31%, 77 Votes)
• Yun Ye (17%, 43 Votes)
• Rick Schwartz (11%, 27 Votes)
• Mike Mann (6%, 14 Votes)
• Anything.com (5%, 13 Votes)
• Michael Berkens (5%, 12 Votes)
• Castello Brothers (4%, 11 Votes)
• George Kirikos (4%, 9 Votes)
• Adam Dicker (4%, 9 Votes)
• Igal Lichtman (Mrs.Jello) (3%, 8 Votes)
• Chris Chena (3%, 7 Votes)
• Thunayan Al-Ghanim (FMA) (3%, 7 Votes)
• Scott Day (2%, 6 Votes)
• Marc Ostrofsky (2%, 4 Votes)
• Mike Zapolin (1%, 3 Votes)
• Nat Cohen/Telepathy (0%, 2 Votes)

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

Aside the point that it is somehow contradictional to ask a question that relates in time to "... all time" while tagging a year ("2021" in this case) as edition to it, I claim, with respect to the listed (and unlisted) persons in the poll, that ...

... the greatest domain name investor / domainer of all time is definitely always only the one who currently owns the most top within a domain name of the domain name system of the world wide web of the internet and ...

... since none of the people on this (poll's) list currently do own them (the most top), none of these people are currently the greatest domain name investor / domainer of all time (even in case the votes (poll's result) may not reflect this reality).

 

[Daniel Owens]

It's a tie between Bill Gates and Rick Schwartz as best domainer.
"Domains have and will continue to go up in value faster than any other commodity ever known to man” Bill Gates

 

[DomainBanana]

No one here knows Yun Ye but he is undoubtedly one of the greatest domain investors of all time and he has only 4 votes.

I think, to make a poll like this more meaningful, there should be a short paragraph about every nominee describing why they are nominated.

If people are uninformed, they just vote for who they know, and the poll doesn't mean much.

 

[NickB]

I think, to make a poll like this more meaningful, there should be a short paragraph about every nominee describing why they are nominated.

If people are uninformed, they just vote for who they know, and the poll doesn't mean much.

Or they can go and read up the people themselves - it's what I did with a few I had not heard of or knew very little about.....instead of just voting on name recognition

No coincidence that probably (not 100% sure) the most vocal domainer on the list is getting the most votes - a sign of the (Social Media) times perhaps

 

[hawkeye]

We've added some requested choices to the poll:

• Jay Chapman (Digimedia)

Scott Day and Jay Chapman are both from Digimedia.
(my vote!)

So many here don't know who the 'real' great domain investors are, that are actually on this list. Que sera.

 

[main]

So many here don't know who the 'real' great domain investors are, that are actually on this list. Que sera.

Who comes to mind?

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

It's interesting somebody said to me that only 5 dudes are ever going to get a decent number of votes, no matter what others have accomplished. There are a few comments on thedomains along those lines.

I think some don't consider companies as investors and others just like who they know. No one here knows Yun Ye but he is undoubtedly one of the greatest domain investors of all time and he has only 4 votes.

I am on team 5 guys max (not based on popularity btw as a few of the top vote getters seem to be) but than again I am looking at individuals who while had companies that owned/managed their portfolios were still "solo" so to speak.

That is why I also said we need a definition, people who are domainers in the pure sense or guys like Bob and GD?

I think end of day after my 5 guys comment there are guys who are the best at X like mentoring, promoting etc that were not the greatest domainer from a pure dollar aspect so....

At any rate that is a very hard list to make.

 

[HotKey]

@AbdulBasit.com has done a great job over the years and shared lots of stuff personally in namepros for us about his acquisition,sales and his style.

Where is Abdul Basit in the list?

I know him personally so my vote is for @AbdulBasit.com .

+1
It's easy to vote for the the greatest, because they are the most prolific. Kevin Ham would be for me. But, we can relate to Abdul as he participates on NP with sales and experiences. There's others as well, so voted "other" on poll. Folks that share their grind with us here have achieved greatness in their own rights as we can look to their insights and get to the root of the matter.

In my eyes, these are some of the greats, in no particular order:

• twiki
• AbdulBasit.com
• Joe N
• DNGear
• TERRADOMAIN
• Nikul Sanghvi
• New.Life

probably missing some, first that came to mind. To me, it's not always about dollar value but what's behind the story that makes it great.

 

[tupungato]

+1 for Abdul Basit

His sales and knowledge sharing inspired me the most.

@AbdulBasit.com

 

[4better]

Who is the greatest domain investor of all time? 2021 edition

This is who is the greatest domain investor of all time, the selling, sales attained, marketing and name selection skills should be what is considered.

For me, the greatest domain investor is the one who affects me most in terms of domaining insight, tips and strategies. He might not have the 7 or 8 figure dollar sales, or the billion dollar amount of domain portfolio or the soaring popularity or whatever. What matters most is that he comes down humbly to the level of ordinary domainers, interact with them, and shares his skills, knowledge and experience in order to benefit others who strive hard to get the most out of domaining. This, for me, is the greatest domainer of all time. I therefore voted "Other".

 

[enterscope]

Rick FTW

 

[jhm]

Depends entirely on what you define as "greatest", that word means different to different people ...

- The juiciest / biggest sales ...biggest profits
- Who's given the most back to the community (the people) ...some people consider that relevant, others don't
- Who's had the most impact, on the most people, in terms of learning / resources

...those are 3 points of many. It depends. I don't really keep track of celebrity domainers ...if its just about the money, most notable sales etc - Bit easy, do some Google searches

 

[jhm]

Who is the greatest domain investor of all time? 2021 edition



For me, the greatest domain investor is the one who affects me most in terms of domaining insight, tips and strategies. He might not have the 7 or 8 figure dollar sales, or the billion dollar amount of domain portfolio or the soaring popularity or whatever. What matters most is that he comes down humbly to the level of ordinary domainers, interact with them, and shares his skills, knowledge and experience in order to benefit others who strive hard to get the most out of domaining. This, for me, is the greatest domainer of all time. I therefore voted "Other".

Seems fair, yep

 

[DomainRecap]

For all his faults, you have to go with Rick.

He's not the nicest, not the most helpful, and certainly not the most humble, but he did have the prescience to see where domains were heading and the guts to double-down on his beliefs. Domains weren't cheap back then ($90-$100 USD to hand-reg) and there were all kinds of real & imagined restrictions during that Wild West period of domaining.

 

[cogger]

I voted "other" because I just hand regged SleepingGiantDomains dotCOM.... .... Asides i miss reading Frank Schillings 7mile blog. Frank or Rick as champ.

 

[Fayaz Ahmed]

One of those lists where you want to see yourself in ten years

 

[jhm]

Other ...NamePros Community Force (NPCF)

 

[biggie]

Hi

some of those listed are deserving, but i'd vote for folks like
@bmugford

imo....

 

[scithe]

DNGear should be on the list.

I haven't been aware of her that long but she's killing it with .xyz domains (a hot topic on this site). She also frequents this website and shares some info as well which I appreciate.

 

[oldtimer]

I believe that like Boxing we should select different Champions for different levels,

Like who is the greatest Champion amongst the heavyweight oldtimers

Who is the Champion amongst the mediumweights which might include a lot of the domainers here at NamePros

And then the lightweights and hobbyist who might stand out within their class for their contributions

And we should even select a Champion amongst the Newbies, Like when people enter the domaining scene for the first time and six months later become gurus with a proven track record those people need to be acknowledged for their achievements somehow.

(Otherwise what's the use of asking this question because the answer will almost always be about the same).

IMO

 

[The Durfer]

I wouldve gone with Frank Schilling again, but Rick Schwartz has actually been active in the field and dominating sales, so i changed my vote from last poll to Mr. Schwartz. ty.

 

[johnn]

Do we have permissions from these people?
Personally, I don't like it if someone just put my name on the list.
And what do we use the result for?

 

[The Durfer]

Do we have permissions from these people?
Personally, I don't like it if someone just put my name on the list.
And what do we use the result for?

i think a few of them are important enough that they know their names are talked about in this field, but not all of them.

 

[gina ferrano]

Mrs. Jello is the only woman? Meh.

 

[equity78]

Mrs. Jello is the only woman? Meh.

No Mrs.Jello is the late Igal Lichtman