Jimmy Wales on How Wikipedia
Builds Trust in a Post-Truth World – Part 1

Wikipedia was never supposed to work. Critics mocked the idea of an encyclopedia that anyone could edit, predicting chaos, misinformation, and collapse. Yet more than two decades later, Wikipedia stands as one of the most trusted platforms on the internet — and one of the clearest examples of large-scale human coordination in the digital age.

In Part 1 of this special two-part conversation on FOMO Sapiens, Patrick McGinnis sits down with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and author of The Seven Rules of Trust, to explore how trust is built at scale — not through control, but through design, culture, and human systems.

They trace Wikipedia’s improbable origin story, the early ridicule it faced, and the deeply personal experiences that shaped its mission. Jimmy explains how trust is built between people, not institutions, and how Wikipedia operationalized that belief through transparency, openness, and community-driven governance.

This episode explores:

• Why Wikipedia succeeded when experts said it would fail
  
• How trust operates at the human level, even inside massive systems
  
• The role of purpose, collaboration, and shared norms
  
• Why trust is a design problem, not a branding exercise
  
• How can decentralized systems outperform centralized control?
  

This is a conversation about the foundations — the architecture, values, and human mechanics that allow trust to emerge and endure. And it sets the stage for Part 2, where that trust is pressure-tested in the age of AI, misinformation, and digital fragmentation.

Meet Jimmy Wales:

Jimmy Wales is the founder of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation. Named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People, he has been recognized by the World Economic Forum for his contributions to the global public good. He lives with his family in London.