Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Donal Wales is an American internet entrepreneur and former financial trader. He is best known as a co-founder of Wikipedia, which is a free, nonprofit online encyclopedia.

He also co-founded Fandom, a service that hosts many different wikis for profit. Wales has worked on several other digital projects, including Bomis, Nupedia, WikiTribune, and Trust Café. His primary mission has been to provide free access to the sum of all human knowledge. Because of this massive impact, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2006.

Wales's passion for information began during his childhood in Huntsville, Alabama. He was raised in a household where education was a central value. His mother, Doris Ann, and his grandmother, Erma, ran a small private school called the House of Learning. This school followed a Montessori-influenced philosophy of education. As a young child, Wales spent many hours reading encyclopedias like Britannica and World Book. He even used stickers provided by the publisher to update the information in his own books.

Before entering the world of internet entrepreneurship, Wales built a career in finance. He earned finance degrees from Auburn University and the University of Alabama. He later attended a PhD program at Indiana University Bloomington but left before finishing his dissertation. During his graduate studies, he worked as a chief research officer at Chicago Options Associates. While studying, he also played multi-user dungeons, or MUDs. These were virtual role-playing games that used computer networks. Playing these games helped him realize that networks could allow large groups of people to work together on big projects.

In 1996, Wales co-founded a web portal called Bomis. This company eventually provided the funding he needed to pursue his interest in online encyclopedias. In March 2000, Wales and Larry Sanger launched Nupedia. Nupedia was a free, peer-reviewed encyclopedia that relied on expert writers. It used a very strict submission process to ensure high quality. However, this process was very slow and created a bottleneck for growth. Wales later recalled feeling too intimidated to even submit a draft to the experts. This experience helped him realize that the Nupedia model needed to change.

To fix the slow growth of Nupedia, Sanger introduced the concept of a wiki. A wiki is a type of website that allows many people to edit content simultaneously and incrementally. This was a major shift from the expert-only model. On January 10, 2001, the Nupedia wiki was created. Five days later, Wikipedia launched as a separate domain.

Although Wales initially feared that open editing might produce "complete rubbish," the project grew rapidly. Within days, the number of articles on Wikipedia exceeded those on Nupedia. A dedicated community of editors began to form and manage the site.

Despite the success, there has been a long-running dispute regarding the founding of Wikipedia. While many sources, including The New York Times, have identified Sanger and Wales as co-founders, Wales has at times claimed sole founder status.

This disagreement has led to various public debates and even changes to Wikipedia's own biographical entries. Sanger has argued that the idea of an open-source, collaborative encyclopedia was entirely Wales's idea. Regardless of the debate over titles, the project transitioned from a Bomis-funded venture toward a non-profit model. This helped ensure the encyclopedia remained a public resource.

Today, Wales remains a central figure in the Wikimedia movement. He holds a board-appointed seat as the "community founder" on the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees. He also delivers annual "State of the Wiki" addresses at the Wikimania conferences.

His work connects the technical world of software development with the social world of collaborative learning. By using the wiki model, he helped create a system where ordinary people can contribute to global knowledge. This system continues to serve millions of users across the entire planet.