Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales is an internet entrepreneur and the co-founder of Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, unless you’re a bot trying to sell male enhancement pills.

Born in 1966 in Huntsville, Alabama, Wales was the third of nine children, which is enough siblings to make anyone want to start an online encyclopedia to escape family dinners. He attended Auburn University, but dropped out before graduating to pursue a career in finance, banking on his ability to make a profit from the internet.

Wales first gained internet fame with his web directory, Bomis, which had a special section called “Bomis Babes” featuring softcore pornographic images. He later said that he had no interest in pornography, but the revenue from it helped fund his other projects like Wikipedia, so we’ll just pretend we didn’t read that.

In 2001, Wales launched Wikipedia with co-founder Larry Sanger, who left the project in 2002, probably because he couldn’t keep up with Wales’ endless energy and never-ending obsession with editing Wikipedia pages.

Wales is known for his outspoken views on internet freedom and is a frequent speaker on the topic at international conferences. He also once set up a personal appeal on Wikipedia asking users to donate money to help him attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, which is like asking your roommates to buy you a plane ticket to Coachella.

Despite criticism of Wikipedia’s accuracy and reliability, Wales has always defended the site, stating that it isn’t perfect but it’s still the best thing out there. Kind of like a lumpy mattress that’s still better than sleeping on the floor.

Overall, Jimmy Wales is a man who has made a profound impact on the internet, but we should probably take anything he says with a grain of salt since he also once claimed he was a professional bowler in his spare time.