Episode 183: Jimmy Wales

When Jimmy Wales was 3, growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, a door-to-door salesman sold his mother a copy pf the World Book Encyclopedia. Jimmy fell in love with it. As an adult he had this idea. ”Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” The result is Wikipedia, which Wales co-founded 25 years ago. Though not without controversy, Wikipedia is a runaway success. It’s the world’s largest, most comprehensive encyclopedia with more than 1 and a half billion unique visitors a month. That should only happen to “Now What?” I talk to Jimmy Wales about his new book The Seven Rules of Trust, reining in social media and how we can make a difference in a bitterly divided society.