IP: Welcome back Sky

[David Farber <dfarber () fast net>]

[ Till Earthlink merged with Mindspring, I was on their advisory board and
enjoyed and found profitable the interactions with Sky and the staff and the
other AB members. I hope it was mutually benifitial djf]

EarthLink Loses Chairman, Gains Incubator

Six months after MindSpring merged with EarthLink, the combined company's
chariman has resigned. More significant, perhaps, is that the seat is being
filled by EarthLink's founder, fresh from founding an Internet incubator
that may hold the keys to the future of the No. 2 ISP.

By Nico Detourn
August 3, 2000

Six months after the merger of competitors MindSpring and EarthLink (Nasdaq:
ELNK) created the nation's second-largest Internet service provider (ISP),
MindSpring's founder Charles Brewer resigned Wednesday as chairman of the
combined company. EarthLink CEO Garry Betty wished Brewer the best "in his
new ventures," though reasons given for his resignation were no more
specific than his desire "to pursue other interests."

Whatever Brewer's other interests and new ventures may be, their pursuit
will be helped by the sale of his EarthLink holdings, despite the stock
currently being some 80% below its all-time high. As part of EarthLink's
previously announced stock repurchase plan, the company will buy 2.845
million of Brewer's shares. Sky Dayton, who founded EarthLink in 1994, will
become the company's chairman, a position he held until the MindSpring
merger.

As founder, chairman, and CEO of MindSpring, Brewer guided the company's
growth through a series of acquisitions, while building its reputation for
quality service and strong customer support. Few services are more important
than connectivity when it comes to making the Internet run.

What makes the Internet access business increasingly difficult, however, is
the need to make one provider of an essentially commodity service stand out
from another, a task made more difficult by EarthLink's roots in the world
of low-speed access as the demand for high-speed access races ahead.

A family connection
By itself, Charles Brewer's resignation may not mean much; high-level,
post-merger resignations aren't unusual. More significant -- potentially, at
least -- is Sky Dayton's return to the chairman's seat.

Dayton is retaking the EarthLink chairman's seat some 14 months after
founding Internet incubator eCompanies in June 1999 with former Walt Disney
(NYSE: DIS) executive Jake Winebaum. As chairman of Walt Disney's Buena
Vista Internet Group -- the umbrella over Disney's Internet properties --
Winebaum had a hand in building Disney.com, ABCNews.com, ESPN.com, and
Go.com, a company he helped create through his role in Disney's acquisition
of InfoSeek. Both EarthLink and Disney were founding investors in
eCompanies.

<snip>

http://www.fool.com/news/2000/elnk000803.htm