by Bob Parsons
First published 2024
Robert Parsons grows up in East Baltimore with gambling-addicted parents and financial hardship all around him. He promises himself his own children will never face such struggles. The Catholic school nuns make his days miserable. He serves as a decorated Marine in Vietnam, where combat leaves him with lasting trauma. Back home, he watches his mother battle mental illness while his father cheats on her repeatedly. Parsons channels his resilience into building companies. He creates Parsons Technologies, then GoDaddy, then YAM Worldwide, accumulating massive wealth along the way. The money flows into power sports, golf courses, real estate deals, and marketing ventures. His war experiences and childhood pain merge into severe PTSD that he fights to overcome. He searches for new treatments that might help other sufferers. Through the Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation, he distributes grants to ninety-six charities worldwide. Veterans organizations receive his strongest support. His storytelling moves between heartbreak and humor, showing a man whose emotional wealth matches his financial success.
Genres: american-fiction, addiction, abuse, 20th-century, business, american, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, overcoming-adversity
Setting: Baltimore, East Baltimore, Vietnam
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
320 pages · Hardcover · Forefront Books
Content warnings: abuse, addiction, mental-illness, war