Ben Elton is an atheist. Elton studied at Stillness Junior School and Godalming Grammar School in Surrey, South Warwickshire College in Stratford-upon-Avon and the University of Manchester. His first television appearance was a stand-up performance on the BBC1 youth and music programme, The "Oxford Road Show". His first TV success, at 23, came as co-writer of the television sitcom, "The Young Ones", in which he occasionally appeared. In 1983/84 he wrote and appeared in Granada Television's sketch show "Alfresco", which was also notable for early appearances by Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Robbie Coltrane. In 1985, Elton produced his first
Ben Thompson (writer) employee, and in April 2014 devoted himself to the site full-time, operating on a "freemium" subscription model. As of April 2015, Thompson had more than 2,000 paying subscribers. Thompson's success with Stratechery has drawn comparisons to Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish and Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight. However, Thompson has stated his primary inspiration was John Gruber, author of the site Daring Fireball. Thompson's undergraduate education was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his graduate education at Northwestern University, where he received an MBA from the Kellogg School as well as an MEM from the McCormick School of Engineering. Ben Thompson (writer) Ben