Sky Dayton was 23 when he started EarthLink, after a frustrating week trying to get his own computer online. In 1994 the internet still felt like a club for engineers. Getting connected meant odd software, busy signals, and no one to call. Dayton bet that regular people would pay a flat monthly fee for a connection that just worked. By January 1997, when EarthLink went public, the Pasadena company was racing America Online for the millions of homes buying their first modems.

Busy Signals in Pasadena

Dayton founded EarthLink in July 1994 in Southern California. The pitch was simple: one monthly price, the software you needed in the box, and real people on the phone to talk you through setup. EarthLink leased network capacity from other carriers and put its money into signing up customers and keeping them. It sold access to the open web, where AOL steered members toward its own walled garden of content.

Merging Toward Atlanta

EarthLink priced 2,000,000 shares at $13 a share on Nasdaq in January 1997, raising about $26 million. In 2000 it merged with MindSpring, a rival internet provider, and moved its headquarters to Atlanta. Broadband slowly emptied the dial-up business, and EarthLink turned toward selling network services to companies. Windstream bought it in early 2017 in a stock deal valued at about $1.1 billion. Two years later Windstream sold the EarthLink consumer business to Trive Capital for $330 million.

Cover: Love Turning the World, Auguste Rodin. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a figure turning the globe (linking the earth).