Wikipedia: Jimmy Wales

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2018

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

During the dot com boom of the late 1990s, Jimmy Wales was running an internet search company. That's when he began to experiment with the idea of an online encyclopedia. In 2001, Wales launched Wikipedia, a website where thousands of community members could contribute, edit, and monitor content on just about anything. Today, the non-profit has stayed true to its open source roots and is the fifth most visited website in the world. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," how Florence Wetterwald created Blabla dolls – eco-friendly knitted dolls made in Peru. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.
0:13.0	As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.
0:17.0	So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.
0:24.0	Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.
0:27.0	What was the end? What's the first Wikipedia entry?
0:33.0	The earliest article that anyone has found was an article on the letter Q.
0:39.0	And in those early days it was very exciting. You could just be the first person to say,
0:43.0	Africa is a continent and it's safe.
0:46.0	And well, it's not very good, but it's not wrong and it's a start.
0:52.0	From NPR, it's how I built this.
0:57.0	The show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:09.0	I'm Guy Ra as an on today's show, the story of how Jimmy Whale started an online and cyclopedia as a side project
1:16.0	and watched it grow into one of the pillars of the internet.
1:28.0	Okay, I'm going to read you the list of the top five most viewed websites in the world.
1:34.0	So number one, of course, is Google.
1:37.0	And then comes YouTube and then Facebook and then Bidoo, which is China's biggest search engine.
1:44.0	And finally, coming in at number five, Wikipedia.
1:48.0	So imagine for a moment that you are the founder of one of these big websites.
1:53.0	How much are you worth?
1:55.0	Well, Forbes puts out annual lists and here's what we found.
	...

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