# EarthLink **EarthLink** is an American internet service provider. [[Sky Dayton]] founded it in Pasadena, Calif., in 1994, when he was 23, to make getting online easier at a time when connecting a home computer took days of setup. In February 2000 it merged with the Atlanta provider MindSpring in a deal worth about $3 billion, becoming the second-largest dial-up service in the country after AOL, with its headquarters in Atlanta. Windstream bought it in 2017, and private equity firm Trive Capital has owned the consumer business since January 2019. **Why it's on the map:** EarthLink made Sky Dayton's fortune, and with it the money behind his later investments with [[David Sacks]] and his political giving, including $50,000 to Sacks's [[Purple Good Government PAC]] and $75,000 to Rep. [[Jay Obernolte]]'s fundraising committee. Dayton gives to candidates in both parties, but his largest checks have gone to Republican-aligned committees. ## History | Date | Event | |---|---| | 1994 | Dayton founds EarthLink in Pasadena | | Feb. 2000 | EarthLink merges with MindSpring, takes the EarthLink name and moves to Atlanta. The combined company has about 2.8 million subscribers and reaches five million later that year | | 2005–2008 | EarthLink and the Korean carrier SK Telecom run Helio, a mobile-phone venture that Dayton leads. It is sold to Virgin Mobile USA in 2008, and Dayton steps down from EarthLink that August | | 2017 | Windstream buys EarthLink for about $1.1 billion, including debt, mainly for its fiber network and business customers | | Jan. 2019 | Windstream sells EarthLink's consumer internet business to Trive Capital for $330 million in cash. The new company is again based in Atlanta | ## Connections - [[Sky Dayton]] · [[CloudKitchens]] · [[Swarm Technologies]] - [[David Sacks]] · [[Purple Good Government PAC]] · [[Jay Obernolte]]