Sky Dayton

Sky Dylan Dayton (born August 8, 1971) is an American entrepreneur and investor. He is the founder of Internet service provider EarthLink, co-founder of eCompanies, and the founder of Boingo.

Dayton's father was a sculptor and mother was a dancer and poet. Shortly after his birth in New York City, the family moved to Los Angeles. He lived for a time with his maternal grandfather, David DeWitt, an IBM Fellow, who played a large part in introducing Dayton to technology.

At the age of 9, he got his first computer, a Sinclair ZX81, which he used to learn programming in BASIC. At 16, Dayton graduated from The Delphian School, a private boarding school in Oregon, which uses study methods developed by L. Ron Hubbard. He wanted to be an animator but got rejected when he applied to CalArts (the California Institute for the Arts), saying he was too young at the time. Instead, Dayton got an entry-level job at an Burbank, California, advertising firm and three months later headed the graphics department. He moved to a larger advertising agency, Mednick & Associates, where he held a similar role until he was 18.

Dayton started his first business in 1990 at age 19. He and a friend raised money from family and friends to open Mocha Gallery (later Cafe Mocha), an art gallery and coffee house in Los Angeles. While managing Cafe Mocha, Dayton and friend Adam Wicks Walker opened Dayton/Walker Design in 1992, a Studio City advertising and design firm, serving entertainment clients including Fox Television, Disney, Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Warner Brothers.

...
Wikipedia