"Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales has been called the last decent tech baron. It's sounds like a flattering label, although one I usually associate more with yacht-dwelling meatheads who feed their herds of cattle homegrown macadamia nuts; the kind of person who can most recently be found wining and dining with the President of the United States and his coterie of MAGA sycophants."
"Wales, on the other hand, keeps things relatively low-key. Even as the site he founded, Wikipedia, turns 25 years old this month, he seems more interested in fixing his home Wi-Fi than joining the tech elite's performative power games. He has also spent the past few months promoting a new book, The Seven Rules of Trust, that uses Wikipedia's overarching strategy and unlikely rise to articulate Wales' playbook for fixing much of what's broken in today's deeply polarized and antagonistic society."
"On this week's episode of The Big Interview, Wales and I discussed what it means to build something used by billions of people that's not optimized for growth at all costs. During our discussion he reflected on Wikipedia's messy, human origins, the ways it's been targeted by governments from Russia to Saudi Arabia, and the challenges of holding the line on neutrality in an online ecosystem hostile to the notion that facts even exist."
Jimmy Wales emphasizes Wikipedia's commitment to neutrality amid rising hostility to facts and growing misinformation. Wikipedia marks its 25th year while resisting growth-at-all-costs models and avoiding performative tech elitism. Wales promotes The Seven Rules of Trust as a playbook grounded in Wikipedia's origins and community-driven governance. Wikipedia has been targeted by governments including Russia and Saudi Arabia and now faces threats from AI and well-funded conspiracy actors. Wales highlights the site's messy, human development, the difficulty of enforcing neutrality online, and personal boundaries such as refusing to edit entries about certain contentious figures.
Read at WIRED
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