EarthLink Founder Entrepreneur of Year

EarthLink Network founder Sky Dayton will be honored as USC’s Entrepreneur of the Year on Thursday at a 6 p.m. banquet at USC’s Marshall School of Business. Dayton, a onetime coffeehouse owner, started the Pasadena-based Internet service provider in 1994, and today it boasts nearly 1.6 million customers and has a market capitalization of nearly $1.4 billion. (Like many Internet companies, however, it is not profitable.) Earlier this year, Dayton launched Santa Monica-based ECompanies with former Walt Disney Internet chief Jake Winebaum to incubate electronic commerce start-ups. Tickets are $55 for the general public and $35 for students. For more information, call (213) 740-0505.