Jimmy Wales spent his childhood in Alabama where education and knowledge was a top priority.

Jimmy attended collage for finance, and worked as a financial trader, before his obsession with the internet, and the possibilities it created, won out.

In 2000, Jimmy launched Nupedia; an online encyclopedia where all articles and contributors were subject to a rigorous peer-review system.

In 2001, Jimmy co-founded Wikipedia, which he feared would be an absolute flop, and at best, could aid the development of Nupedia. Within a number of days, the articles on Wikipedia had outgrown Nupedia, and Jimmy’s focus shifted to this idea of an open-sourced, collaborative encyclopedia built on the broader concept of trust.

Today, Wikipedia exists in 340 languages, is maintained by a community of volunteers, and funded purely by the donations from the public. The English Wikipedia hosts 65 million articles.

Jimmy also co-founded Wikia (now known as Fandom) in 2004, a for-profit hosting service.