A.D. Miles

Once upon a time, stand-up was a comedian's surest route to television work, while a later generation went from long-form improv troupes like Second City or the Upright Citizens Brigade into TV sketch comedy. But in the post-YouTube world, a new generation of comedians ditched live audiences entirely, honing their comic sensibilities using cheap and easy-to-operate digital technology and posting the results online. Writer, actor and director A.D. Miles was one of the first to take this path to a wide television audience when he became the head writer of "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" in 2009.