Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales Has been called the last civilized tech baron. It sounds like a flattering label, although I usually associate it with yacht-dwelling meatheads who feed homegrown macadamia nuts to their cattle herds; The kind of person who could recently be found wining and dining with the President of the United States and his group of MAGA sycophants.
Wales, on the other hand, keeps things relatively low-key. Even as the site he founded, Wikipedia, turns 25 this month, he’s more interested in fixing his home Wi-Fi than engaging in the performative power games of the tech elite. He has also spent the last few months promoting a new book, Seven rules of trustWhich uses Wikipedia’s broader strategy and unexpected growth to illustrate Wales’ strategy for fixing what is broken in today’s highly polarized and hostile society.
On this week’s episode of The Big Interview, Wells and I discuss what it means to build something used by billions of people that isn’t optimized for growth at all costs. During our discussion he reflected on Wikipedia’s messy, human origins, the ways it has been targeted by governments ranging from Russia to Saudi Arabia, and the challenges of maintaining the line of neutrality in an online ecosystem hostile to the notion that facts exist. We also talked about what threats Wikipedia faces now, from AI to conspiracy-minded billionaires, and why he’ll never edit an entry about Donald Trump. Read our full conversation below.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Katie Drummond: Jimmy Wells, welcome to The Big Interview. Thank you very much for coming here.
Jimmy Wales: Thanks for adding me.
We always start these conversations with a few quick questions, like a little warmup for your brain. Are you ready?
Yes.
What internet rabbit hole have you fallen into recently?
Home assistant. I just started using Home Assistant to operate smart home devices, and there’s a huge community and thousands of things to read about it and so on and so forth. So that’s what I’m passionate about.
What is this community doing?
Troubleshooting. People are working on extensions to deal with all kinds of things in the world and it’s amazing.
What’s one topic you never argue about online anymore?
I will say that I don’t argue with anyone on trans issues. There is absolutely no point in this. It is very poisonous. I never argued about it, but I don’t talk about it either.
You’re just supposed to stay away.
Yes, it is very unpleasant.
Who do you trust more: Wikipedia or ChatGPT?
Definitely Wikipedia.
I had to ask. What is your favorite website or app that is not Wikipedia?
I really like parts of Reddit. There are some really great communities and great people on Reddit. I lurk in the personal finance subreddit and read. There are really nice people there. I’m always amazed by this.
Reddit is really having a moment. I think I spend too much time hiding in the Reddit app on my phone, because I’d rather read thoughtful conversations than scroll through X.
This is exactly it. It’s like a paragraph space.
And are often really thoughtful people. What’s the best thing about living in UK vs US?
Well, my family is here. I always say this about America: Tech is in Silicon Valley, and politics is in Washington, and movies and showbiz are in LA, and finance is in New York. But all those things are in London.
So if I lived in Silicon Valley, I would only have tech friends because that’s where they live. Whereas in London, it is much more widespread. All kinds of people. So I like that.
