Jimmy Wales Net Worth 2024

What is Jimmy Wales’ Net Worth and Salary?

Jimmy Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur who has a net worth of $1.5 million. Jimmy Wales is an American-British Internet entrepreneur who co-founded the web non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the for-profit web-hosting firm Wikia. He was named certainly one of “The 100 Most Influential People within the World” by Time.

With a slight coincidence/technique, Jimmy, by any depend, might have been a multi-billionaire. If Wikipedia was not a non-profit and as an alternative accepted simply fundamental banner adverts, it might be value – by some estimates – greater than $10 billion. Instead, Jimmy wasn’t even a millionaire when he gave an interview with the New York Times in 2013. In that interview, with regards to misplaced billions, Jimmy defined:

“It hardly ever crosses my thoughts. Reporters ask me on a regular basis and count on me to say: ‘I’m heartbroken. Where’s my billion {dollars}?’ There are care sellers in Ohio who’ve extra money than I’ll ever have, and their jobs are a lot, a lot much less attention-grabbing than mine.“

Salary

In a 2019 Tweet, Jimmy confirmed that in your entire historical past of the Wikimedia Foundation, he had made $0 in wage.

Early Life

Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, on August 7, 1966, to oldsters Jimmy Sr. and Doris Ann. His father was a grocery retailer supervisor, and his mom ran a non-public college referred to as the House of Learning. Wales, alongside together with his three siblings, acquired their early schooling at this college.

Throughout his childhood, Wales liked studying and developed an curiosity in encyclopedias. He shortly realized that whereas encyclopedias had been full of data, additionally they neglected a substantial amount of related particulars. Education was extremely valued within the Wales family, and after eighth grade, Wales attended Randolph School, a preparatory college that was costly for the family. He was capable of graduate on the age of 16 after which attended Auburn University, the place he achieved a bachelor’s diploma in finance in 1986. He then started a Ph.D. program on the University of Alabama however transferred to Indiana University. While he did train at each universities throughout his postgraduate research, he by no means accomplished his dissertation.

Career

Wales started his profession in 1994 at Chicago Options Associates, an choices buying and selling agency in Chicago. Wales had developed an curiosity in laptop code whereas in class, in addition to laptop video games and laptop networks typically. This curiosity impressed him to depart his finance job and located Bomis, an online portal and “guy-oriented search engine,” with two companions in 1996.

Bomis was finally not profitable, but it surely did present Wales with the time to pursue one other concept – a web based encyclopedia. In 2000, together with Larry Sanger, Wales launched Nupedia, a peer-reviewed, open-content encyclopedia on-line. Wales supposed for a lot of specialists to put in writing articles on a volunteer foundation that might then be reviewed by a whole lot of different specialists to make sure articles of a top quality corresponding to that {of professional} print encyclopedias.

However, the prolonged submission and assessment course of made Nupedia very gradual to develop and develop. Sanger, after having met programmer Ben Kovitz, steered that Nupedia ought to recommend the wiki mannequin, permitting editors to contribute concurrently and incrementally. While the specialists already engaged on the challenge didn’t need something to do with this concept, as they thought-about it to be novice, the ensuing wiki pages quickly flourished. Dubbed Wikipedia by Sanger, the web site had its personal area, and the variety of articles on Wikipedia shortly surpassed that of Nupedia.

In its early years, Wikipedia was developed and guided by Sanger, although the unique concept got here totally from Wales. Additionally, Wales’ first firm, Bomis, continued funding the challenge for a while. Sanger labored as editor-in-chief of the web site till he resigned in 2002. Since then, there was disagreement between Wales and Sanger relating to who holds the title of founder or co-founder of Wikipedia, as Wales has since declared himself to be the only real founder.

In 2003, Wales arrange the Wikipedia Foundation, a non-profit group that handles mental property rights and domains associated to Wikipedia. In 2004, Wales based the for-profit firm Wikia. Wikia is a wiki farm, which means it hosts collections of particular person wikis on totally different subjects like “Star Wars” or “Harry Potter.” Wikia additionally provided a search engine that was meant to rival Google.

Wales has gotten concerned with politics, particularly within the 2010s, primarily relating to subjects referring to Internet freedom and privateness. He testified earlier than the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on the advantages of Internet know-how. He additionally was very vital of the 2014 European court docket of Justice ruling that gave people the correct to request Google to take away details about them. He has been vital of each UK and US politics.

Wales has acquired a lot of awards and accolades over his life. He is a former co-chair of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and has additionally served on many boards for Internet and know-how associated points at Harvard Law School and MIT. In 2014, he was awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa by the Faculty of Communication Sciences by USI Lugano University. He acquired one other honorary diploma from Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland, in addition to from Maastricht University. In 2017, he was awarded the President’s Medal of the British Academy for his improvement of Wikipedia.

Personal Life

Wales has been married 3 times. When he was 20, he married his co-worker at a grocery retailer, Pamela Green. They divorced in 1993. He then met his second spouse, Christine Rohan, by a mutual pal whereas working in Chicago. They had been married in Florida in March of 1997. They had a daughter collectively however then separated in 2008.

In 2008, Wales briefly was romantically concerned with conservative columnist Rachel Marsden, although their relationship led to controversy. Their relationship was mentioned to be a battle of curiosity as Wales had initially contacted Marsden relating to her Wikipedia biography.

In October 2012, Wales married Kate Garvey in London. The two met in Davos, Switzerland, and have two daughters collectively. They have lived in London since 2012, and Wales grew to become a British citizen in 2019.

Wales enjoys cooking and philosophy. He describes himself as an Objectivist and can be an atheist. He was closely influenced by economist Friedrich Hayek’s essay, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” when creating Wikipedia and deciding the way it ought to function. He is also a fan of Ayn Rand and describes his political opinions as center-right.