Jimmy Donal Wales born August 7, , also known as Jimbo Wales , is an American Internet entrepreneur , webmaster , and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the non-profit free encyclopedia, Wikipedia , and the for-profit wiki hosting service Fandom formerly Wikia. Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama , where he attended the Randolph School.
He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in finance from Auburn University and the University of Alabama , respectively. In graduate school, Wales taught at two universities; he departed before completing a PhD to take a job in finance and later worked as the research director of Chicago Options Associates.
In , Wales and two partners founded Bomis , a web portal known for featuring erotic photographs. Bomis provided the initial funding for the free peer-reviewed encyclopedia Nupedia — On January 15, , with Larry Sanger and others, Wales launched Wikipedia, a free open-content encyclopedia that enjoyed rapid growth and popularity.
As its public profile grew, Wales became its promoter and spokesman. Though he is historically credited as a co-founder, he has disputed this, declaring himself the sole founder. Wales serves on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, the charity that he helped establish to operate Wikipedia, holding its board-appointed "community founder" seat. Wales gives an annual "State of the Wiki" address at the Wikimania conference. Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama , on August 7, ; however, his birth certificate lists his date of birth as August 8.
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As a child, Wales enjoyed reading. As he grew up and learned to read, it became an object of reverence, but Wales soon discovered that the World Book had shortcomings: No matter how much was in it, there were many more things that were not. World Book sent out stickers for owners to paste on the pages to update the encyclopedia, and Wales was careful to put the stickers to work, stating, "I joke that I started as a kid revising the encyclopedia by stickering the one my mother bought.
