Sky Dayton

Founder and Chairman

EarthLink Network Inc.

In four years, Sky Dayton has gone from owning a local coffee house to being chairman of a publicly held company with a market capitalization of $1.3 billion.

Dayton, who turned 27 last week, frequently quotes from Van Halen songs and declares that he’s “having the time of my life.” But there is more to Dayton than youthful exuberance.

His involvement in the Internet stems from his personal interest in computers and a fascination with how people communicate. Ever since he was 8 years old, and his grandfather (a former IBM fellow) gave him his first computer, Dayton has been a computer junkie. He pursued various computer-related fields, such as software marketing and computer graphics.

His interest in communicating led him to open Caf & #233; Mocha in West Los Angeles, which served as a place for people to gather and talk.

It wasn’t until Dayton realized the potential of using the Internet as a powerful communication tool that he put his two interests together. During one frustrating stretch in 1994 (prior to commercial Internet access providers like America Online) it took Dayton more than 80 hours to get on the Internet.

That experience prompted him to develop a software program that allowed more direct access to the new medium. Today, EarthLink boasts 750,000 customers and bills itself as the fastest-growing and largest independent ISP. Analysts expect the company to have upwards of 1 million users by the end of next year.

All of which has made Dayton a rich man. He owns 13.5 percent of EarthLink’s outstanding shares, according to the most recent SEC filing, and last year alone garnered stock options worth nearly $3 million in addition to his annual salary and bonus of $225,000.

“Sky put a friendly face on the Internet; he has managed to make it a more consumer-friendly experience,” said Steve Harmon, senior investment analyst and vice president of business development at Meckler Media in Silicon Valley.

Dayton has ambitions to grow Earthlink to match AOL’s size. His current expansion plans are to quadruple the company’s business, a feat he says it can accomplish with its current capacity.

“Only 20 percent of households in the U.S. have access to the Internet; 80 percent of the market is totally untapped,” Dayton pointed out. “EarthLink’s job is to help get those people onto the Internet.”

David Brindley