NEW YORK — Jim Kimsey, the co-founder of Web pioneer AOL, has died of cancer at age 76. He died Tuesday in his home in McLean, Va., said his son, Mark Kimsey.
In the early 1980s, Kimsey, a Vietnam veteran, was a Washington, D.C.-area restaurateur. A venture-capitalist friend from West Point asked him to take a look at a video game download company called Control Video. That company flailed and was reorganized into one called Quantum Computer Services, with Kimsey at the helm.
In 1991, that company was renamed America Online, famous for its “You’ve got mail” greeting. It grew to connect millions of early Internet users with dial-up service.
Kimsey is credited with supporting and grooming a young Steve Case, associated with AOL’s growth and success in the early days of the Internet.
“I think one of the best things I ever did was let Steve run the company,” Kimsey was quoted in 1995 in The Washington Post. “Today, that one decision to get out of the way makes me look like a genius.”
Kimsey said he stepped down as chairman in 1995, years before AOL’s ill-fated merger with Time Warner.