Sky Dayton

Sky Dayton, the creative mind who founded internet service provider Earthlink, has also been involved with animated television shows. Before he went on to help build companies that propelled the internet into our everyday lives, Dayton was an animation-obsessed teenager who spent his free time drawing and animating cartoons. Shortly after graduating high school in 1988 at age 16, Dayton got a dream internship working for DIC Entertainment, the storied home of such animated classics as Inspector Gadget and Alvin & The Chipmunks. He was assigned to the team working on their reboot of the legendary 1960s cartoon series Beany and Cecil, under animator John Kricfalusi. Like Dayton's budding animation career, the new Beany & Cecil proved to be short-lived. They were redeemed for their early struggles, as Kricfalusi went on to create Ren & Stimpy, and Dayton went on to create EarthLink.