Sky Dayton
Sky Dylan Dayton (born 8 August 1971) is an American entrepreneur.
Dayton is the founder of EarthLink, co-founder of eCompanies, founder and chairman of Boingo.
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[edit] Early life
Dayton's father was a sculptor and his mother 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 grandparents. His grandfather, David DeWitt, was an IBM Research Fellow, and he played a huge part in introducing young Sky to technology and computers.[1][2]
At the age of 9, Dayton got his first computer, a Sinclair ZX81. He learned to program in BASIC on this early machine. At age 16, Dayton graduated from The Delphian School, a private boarding school in Oregon, which uses study methods developed by L. Ron Hubbard. He got a job at an entertainment advertising firm, where he became exposed to Apple Macintosh hardware and digital imaging software and soon managed the digital imaging department. He then moved on to a larger advertising agency, Mednick & Associates, where he held a similar role until he was 18.[3][4]
[edit] Entrepreneurial career
In late 1990, at the age of 19, Dayton and a friend raised money from family and friends and opened Mocha Gallery, an art gallery and coffee house in L.A. After 6 months they changed the name to Cafe Mocha and got rid of the art business. The trendy Cafe Mocha was written up in the Los Angeles Times, Vogue and GQ magazines and was featured on MTV's "House of Style". He and his partner soon took over another coffeehouse called Joe Cafe in Studio City, California.[5][6][7]
In 1992, while still managing Cafe Mocha, Dayton and friend Adam Wicks Walker opened Dayton/Walker Design, a Studio City advertising and design firm, in 1992. Dayton/Walker served entertainment clients including Fox Television, Disney, Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Warner Brothers.[8][9]
In 1993, Dayton heard about the Internet. After spending 80 hours trying to get his Macintosh computer to log in, he finally got connected. Realizing that the Internet was likely to become the next mass medium, in 1994 he decided to start EarthLink. He was 23 years old. In search of startup capital, he approached Kevin O'Donnell, father of a childhood friend, and Reed Slatkin. O'Donnell, Slatkin, and other "angel investors" put up the initial startup capital and other investors soon followed, including Robert Kavner and Chip Lacy and then larger investors such as George Soros. [10] Dayton described what it was like in the early days in an article in Vanity Fair:[11]
I owned a couple of coffeehouses in L.A., and I had a computer-graphics company that I co-owned. And I heard about this thing called the Internet. I thought, That sounds kind of interesting. The first thing I did is I actually picked up the phone and dialed 411, and I said, I’d like the number for the Internet, please. And the operator is like, What? I said, Just search any company with the word Internet in the name. Blank. Nothing. I thought, Wow, this is interesting. What is this thing anyway?—Sky Dayton
Dayton began in 600 square feet (56 m2) of space in an office in Los Angeles. Dayton quickly expanded the company and by the summer of 1995 EarthLink was able to provide national service enabled by its agreement with UUNET. In 1996 Dayton moved from founding CEO to executive chairman, handing over day-to-day operations of the company to Charles "Garry" Betty. At the time, the company was growing at a rate of 5 percent to 10 percent a week. [12] A long-time Mac user, in 1998, Dayton lead the creation of a strategic partnership with Steve Jobs at Apple that saw EarthLink become the default ISP preloaded on iMac,[13] and later lead to a $200M investment by Apple into the company.[14]
EarthLink grew to become one of the nation's leading Internet service providers, with millions of customers and over $1 billion in annual revenue.
In June 1999, Dayton became non-executive chairman of EarthLink and announced the formation of eCompanies with former Disney Internet chief Jake Winebaum. eCompanies began as an incubator and venture capital fund for developing Internet companies. It is a privately held company, and while it reportedly struggled for a time (as did most Internet companies in 2000), it ultimately launched several successful companies, including LowerMyBills.com, which was purchased by Experian in 2005 for $380M, JAMDAT Mobile, which went public and was then purchased by Electronic Arts in 2005 for $680 million, and Business.com (the domain for which Dayton and Winebaum bought for $7.5M during the height of the dot com bubble), which was purchased by RH Donnelly in 2007 for $345 million.
Dayton started Boingo Wireless in 2001 to solve the fragmentation problem inherent in Wi-Fi networks. Boingo aggregates hundreds of thousands of Wi-Fi “hot spots” around the globe into a single system for consumers and it has grown into one of the largest Wi-Fi operators in the world. Dayton serves as Boingo's chairman.[15] Boingo filed to go public in January, 2011,[16] listing Dayton as owning 15%.[17]
On May 4th, 2011, Boingo Wireless went public selling 5,770,000 shares at $13.50, raising $77.9 million. Of the shares sold in the offering, the company sold 3,846,800 shares and selling stockholders 1,923,200 shares. After the offering, the company has 32.5 million shares out, giving the company a market cap of around $439 million on the offering…and less now.[18]
Dayton became CEO of Helio upon the company’s launch in 2005. At that time, he resigned as chairman of EarthLink but remained a director. In January 2008 he was appointed Chairman of Helio's Board of Directors for the months leading up to Helio's sale. Helio was acquired by Virgin Mobile USA in 2008.
[edit] Other activities and awards
Dayton serves on the advisory board of the Center for Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[19]
He was chosen as Entrepreneur of the Year by the Lloyd Greif Center at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. He is a recipient of the Dream Keeper award from the I Have a Dream Foundation[20] and in 1999 he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.[21]
[edit] Family and leisure
In 1998 Dayton began taking surfing lessons and quickly fell for the sport. His love for surfing is often featured in articles about him and his businesses.
Dayton is the great grandson of politician, industrialist and poet, Sam DeWitt.
Dayton is married to novelist Arwen Elys Dayton. They are Scientologists and they have three children.[22][23]
[edit] Interviews
- Connecting, Interview with Sky Dayton (2010) LA Business Journal
- This Week In Start-Ups (2010) with Jason Calacanis
- Sultans of Surf (2007) Outside Go Magazine
- Q&A with Sky Dayton (2006) Business Week
- Q&A with Sky Dayton (2004) Business Week
- Dueling CEOs talk Wi-Fi (2003) Business Week
[edit] Speeches and Writings
- When Capital Corrupts Forbes (2002)
- Education in the Internet Age Speech at Hillsdale College (2003) published in Imprimis
- Lighting the Way EarthLink bLink Magazine (2001)
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Bloom, David (9 June 1998), "Electronic Midas Touch", Los Angeles Daily News
- ^ Businessweek, 29 April 2002, "Resume: Sky Dayton"[1]
- ^ Bloom, David (9 June 1998), "Electronic Midas Touch", Los Angeles Daily News
- ^ "Interview: Boingo Wireless Chairman Sky Dayton". (1 June 2010). Los Angeles Daily News.[2]
- ^ Armstrong, Larry (4 December 1997), "The Mac of Internet Providers". BusinessWeek.[3]
- ^ Businessweek, 29 April 2002, "Resume: Sky Dayton"[4]
- ^ Q&A with Sky Dayton (2006) BusinessWeek.[5]
- ^ Nee, Eric (27 July 1997), "Surf's Up". Forbes, p. 106
- ^ "Interview: Boingo Wireless Chairman Sky Dayton". (1 June 2010). Los Angeles Daily News.[6]
- ^ Margonelli, Lisa (October 1998), "The Sky's the Limit". POV.
- ^ Keenan Mayo and Peter Newcomb (July 2008)"An Oral History of the Internet" Vanity Fair[7]
- ^ Margonelli, Lisa (October 1998), "The Sky's the Limit". POV.
- ^ Apple, Inc. press release (August 1998), "Apple Selects EarthLink as ISP"[8]
- ^ Menn, Joseph (January 2000)"Apple Buys $200 Million Stake in EarthLink". Los Angeles Times [9]
- ^ Foresman, Chris (3 July 2008), "Boingo Offers New Mac-Compatible Client for WiFi Network". Ars Technica.com[10]
- ^ Kim, Ryan (14 Jan 2011), "While Everyone Watches Groupon, Boingo Files for IPO" GigaOm[11]
- ^ Boingo S-1 filing (14 Jan 2011), SEC[12]
- ^ Eric Savitz, (May 4th, 20100) "Boingo Wireless IPO Finds Lukewarm Reception On Day One" [13]/
- ^ Warren Bennis Leadership Circle, Center for Public Leadership, John F. Kenndy School of Government, Harvard University[14]
- ^ Life Magazine: Sky Dayton, Jennifer Garner, Dave Winfield -- I Have a Dream Foundation Gospel Brunch, House of Blues[15]
- ^ "1999 Young Innovators Under 35". Technology Review. 1999. http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35/profile.aspx?TRID=519. Retrieved August 14, 2011.
- ^ Dayton, Sky. Bio on personal website.
- ^ "Interview: Boingo Wireless Chairman Sky Dayton". (1 June 2010). Los Angeles Daily News.
[edit] References
- Rose, Frank (March 2006), "Sky Dayton Gets Mobile". Wired Magazine, pp. 154-162.
- Young, Shawn (26 October 2005), "EarthLink, SK Telecom Dial In to Data Venture". The Wall Street Journal, p. B4.
- "EarthLink Inc.: Wireless Joint Venture Is Signed With South Korea's SK Telecom". (27 January 2005). The Wall Street Journal, p. D6.
- Ankeny, Jason (March 2005), "Sky Dayton's Newest Next Big Thing (Again)". Wireless Review, pp. 45-50.
- "Surfing Book of Records: Most Enterprising Surfer". (October 2004). Surfing Magazine, p. 66.
- Dayton, Sky (May 2003). "Education in the Internet Age". Imprimis, pp. 1-5.
- Dayton, Sky (25 March 2002). "When Capital Corrupts". Forbes ASAP.
- Helio: About Helio: Meet our leaders: Sky Dayton's Bio. Retrieved 9 May 2006
- McGarvey, Robert J. (January 1998), "Sky's The Limit". Entrepreneur.com.
- I Have a Dream Foundation Dream Keeper Award Recipient (February 2010). [16]
- EarthLink, Inc. company profile, fundinguniverse.com [17]
- Warren Bennis Leadership Circle, Center for Public Leadership, John F. Kenndy School of Government, Harvard University[18]
- Sky Dayton, Jennifer Garner, Dave Winfield -- I Have a Dream Foundation Gospel Brunch, House of Blues[19]
