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Jimmy Wales

Co-founder of Wikipedia (born 1966)

  • Audience87
  • Fame91.5
  • Momentum10.0
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Source-basedFalling
87 youtube followers
  • Audience87
  • Fame91.5
  • Momentum10.0
  • Global rank#42
  • United States rank#12
  • Founders rank#3
Born 1966 · age 60United States
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  • Wikipedia
    189 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Global rank
    #42
    Fame.am leaderboard
  • Age
    60
    Born 1966
  • Known for
    Page One: Inside the N…
    2011
Summary
Updated 2026-08-17

He turned the internet into an encyclopedia that anyone could edit — and somehow it worked. Wales bet that strangers would police each other into building the most-consulted reference work on earth, and Wikipedia now fields half a billion visits a day.

Biography

About

Born in Huntsville, Alabama on August 8, 1966, Wales studied finance at Auburn and the University of Alabama, then spent the 1990s trading options in Chicago as chief research officer at Chicago Options Associates. In 1996 he co-founded Bomis, which bankrolled Nupedia, a peer-reviewed encyclopedia that moved too slowly. On January 15, 2001, Wales and Larry Sanger launched Wikipedia as a faster, open-edit alternative; it grew explosively while Wales became its public face, though he has disputed Sanger's claim to co-founder status. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in 2006.…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales
said
What if we could get everyone in the world together to record what they know in one place?
— Quoted by Larry Sanger in "The early history of Wikipedia (part 1) ~(1:49)" (January 2000), YouTube (7 May 2020)
Jimmy Wales
said
We are growing from a cheerful small town where everyone waves off their front porch to the subway of New York City where everyone rushes by.
— As quoted in ExpressIndia (7 September 2005)
Jimmy Wales
said
Most people understand the need for neutrality.
— "How a ragtag band created Wikipedia" - TED Talk (July 2005); this has sometimes appeared paraphrased as "The real struggle is not between
Jimmy Wales
said
Freely licensed textbooks are the next big thing in education.
— While talking about Wikibooks project; TED - Jimmy Wales: How a ragtag band created Wikipedia, July 2005
Jimmy Wales
said
Ideally, our rules should be formed in such a fashion that an ordinary helpful kind thoughtful person doesn't really even need to know the rules.
— User talk statement (7 April 2005)
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Latest

On YouTube

By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Falling
91.5
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum10.0
Historical25.5
Now attention26.7
Source confidence95.0
Completeness90.0
Global rank
#42
Country rank
#12
Category rank
#3
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence