1251: Jimmy Wales | Building Trust the Wikipedia Way

Summary

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The Jordan Harbinger Show: "Jimmy Wales | Building Trust the Wikipedia Way"

Episode 1251 • December 4, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, discussing how trust, collaboration, and open participation have enabled Wikipedia to thrive in a digital landscape filled with misinformation and declining institutional trust. Host Jordan Harbinger and Wales explore the philosophy, mechanics, and cultural rules behind Wikipedia’s ongoing reliability, as well as the broader implications of trust in organizations, media, and society.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origin Story of Wikipedia

• Wales reflects on the transition from Nupedia (an expert-driven but slow process) to Wikipedia’s open, wiki-based collaboration:
  • “We had more work done in about two weeks than we had in almost two years. It was like, okay, wow, this might work.” — Jimmy Wales [04:01]
• Wikipedia now covers 60–80 million articles in 300+ languages, with less than 10% in English [04:23].
• Translation goes both ways; many non-English articles provide unique, localized content [04:54].

2. Wikipedia as a Force for Good Online

• Wales and Harbinger discuss how Wikipedia represents the best of the Internet’s early ideals—global knowledge, open access, volunteerism, and community moderation:
  • “It restores some of my faith in humanity.” — Jordan Harbinger [06:31]
• The project’s success challenges skepticism that large, public online projects must devolve into chaos.

3. How Wikipedia Handles Controversies and Edit Wars

• Wales outlines community mechanisms for managing “trolls, vandals, propagandists, corporations” and contentious topics:
  • “Vandalism… We just revert it. You get one warning, at least one, and then you get blocked.” [17:35]
  • For hot-button topics: “Go meta, go one level higher. Don’t take sides…just write about the conflict in a fair way, express what all the relevant sides say.” [17:44]
  • “Our core policy is very, very strong…neutral point of view. Like, neutrality is so important to our being trusted that we have to maintain that.” [25:50]
• Not all disputes are easily resolved; identity, bias, relevance of personal details, and “WikiVoice” are constant negotiation points [20:48–22:45].

4. Transparency & Trust: The Pillars of Wikipedia (and Business)

• Wales emphasizes transparency and openness, even over perfection:
  • “We shouldn’t think that the only way to get trust is by being perfect…One of the rules of trust is be transparent, especially when you have something to hide.” [27:16]
• Example: The handling of brand/institutional crises (Airbnb, Volkswagen, COVID-19 communications).
• Comparison to businesses: “Trust buys you a lot of space.” [68:31]

5. Assume Good Faith – A Wikipedia Rule for Life

• “Assume Good Faith” isn’t about being naïve, but starting with the presumption that newcomers or adversaries are acting with positive intentions:
  • “It’s not a suicide pact… But…sort of that initial thing: they probably just need to be helped out a bit.” [48:07]
  • This principle extends to families, workplaces, and society at large.

6. Neutrality and Media Bias

• Harbinger and Wales discuss accusations of Wikipedia’s “liberal/left-wing bias”:
  • Wales: “Let’s take [complaints] seriously. Let’s have a look… Sometimes you look…maybe we could be a bit better.” [25:50, 77:46]
  • Quality controls prevent unreliable or “clickbait farm” sources regardless of political lean [78:46–80:24].
  • Wales: “The right deserves better than some of this crap that they’re following. Let’s have a real intellectual boom on the right.” [79:24]
• Wales advocates for all sides to contribute thoughtfully and respectfully, upholding neutrality as a core value [80:04].

7. Wikipedia’s Financial & Governance Structure

• Wikipedia is a charity with a ~$175M budget, mostly from small donors—Wales volunteers, not a billionaire [80:34–81:49].
• Donor independence protects editorial freedom from large donors or governments [81:49–82:27].

8. Handling Government Pressures & Global Access

• Wales details resisting censorship and pressure from governments (China, Turkey, attempted interference in US/others):
  • “We don’t censor content to satisfy governments… Our donors would probably punish us quite hard.” [83:58–84:53]
  • Wikipedia prioritizes user privacy and supports anonymous editing, noting its importance for editors in authoritarian countries [86:23–88:00].
  • Only China consistently blocks Wikipedia [88:04, 88:22].

9. AI and the Challenges of Truth

• AI-generated content raises new concerns for misinformation:
  • “AI hallucinates a lot...If you want to write about something obscure and you ask ChatGPT about it, the chances of hallucination are much higher.” [92:25]
  • Wales sees opportunities for AI to help with non‑creative editorial tasks (e.g., replacing broken links), but not for generating factual content [94:08–95:09].

10. Leadership, Impact, and Doing the Work

• Final advice for aspiring changemakers:
  • “Just get started… The next five years will go by no matter what you do…so you might as well do the thing.” [97:12]
  • Taking risks and valuing failure as learning, rather than focusing on endless planning [98:50].
  • Collaboration, transparency, and focusing on solving real problems are keys to impact [101:23].

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On ordinary people making a difference:
  • “If you want to make an impact like Jimmy’s, you don’t have to found the next world encyclopedia. Just start by solving a real problem. Obsess over quality and collaborate like your idea depends on strangers showing up and doing the right thing—because it probably will.” — Jordan Harbinger [101:23]
• On trust and transparency:
  • “We shouldn’t think that the only way to get to trust is by being perfect… Be transparent, especially when you have something to hide.” — Jimmy Wales [27:16]
• On policing bias:
  • “If any sort of right-wing billionaires want to start funding some kind of really high quality, thoughtful, intellectual conservative media, I think that would be a good thing. The right deserves better than some of this crap that they’re following.” — Jimmy Wales [79:24]
• On ‘Assume Good Faith’:
  • “If you treat people as if they are all up to no good, you’re gonna have a miserable life… But if you trust them, you’ll get so much more out of people, and they’ll like it so much more.” — Jimmy Wales [48:51, 53:42]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [04:01] — Launch of Wikipedia after Nupedia and the surprising speed of contribution
• [06:31] — Wikipedia as a rare example of Internet-based optimism and collaboration
• [17:35] — Mechanisms for controlling trolls, vandals, and edit wars on controversial topics
• [25:50] — Addressing bias, neutrality policy, and ongoing self-correction
• [27:16] — Importance of transparency in building and sustaining trust
• [48:04] — "Assume Good Faith" and its relevance beyond Wikipedia
• [68:31] — Taking a "trust inventory" in organizations and what it means for business relationships
• [77:46] — Conversations about perceived political bias in Wikipedia and how neutrality is approached
• [83:58] — Wikipedia’s stance against government censorship and defense of editorial independence
• [92:25] — Limits and risks of AI/LLMs for generating reliable information, and cautious optimism about AI tools for editorial support
• [97:12] — Wales’ advice on starting something impactful: “Just get started…the next five years will go by no matter what you do”

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Episode Highlights & Tone

• The tone is warm, thoughtful, and laced with humor (e.g., “Wikipedia is one of the last places online where the wisdom of crowds consistently beats the stupidity of mobs” — Jordan Harbinger [01:21]).
• Wales is humble, pragmatic, and often self-deprecating; Harbinger balances skepticism and genuine admiration.
• The conversation is rich with real-world examples (Airbnb, COVID, Volkswagen, The Queen, Uber) and connects Wikipedia’s hard-won lessons to wider issues—media trust, management, AI.
• Discussions frequently circle back to the idea that Wikipedia’s rules for conflict management (“assume good faith,” “be transparent,” “go meta”), if applied elsewhere, could repair much of what’s broken online and off.

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Actionable Takeaways

• In organizations and life, build systems (and cultures) where transparency and trust are default, not exceptions.
• Don’t shy from criticism—neutrality and trust require continuous, open self-scrutiny.
• Start projects by taking action, not by seeking permission or perfect plans.
• Be technologically aware but remain focused on verifiable sources and critical thinking, especially as AI-generated content becomes pervasive.
• Collaborate with humility: invite contributions, embrace corrections, and build things “with” people, not just “for” them.

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For further resources and links, visit the full show notes at jordanharbinger.com.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

This episode is sponsored in part by LinkedIn. If you've ever hired for your small business, you know how important it is to find the right person. That's why LinkedIn Jobs is stepping things up with their new AI assistant, so you can feel confident you're finding top talent that you can't find anywhere else. The best part is that these great candidates are already on LinkedIn. In fact, employees hired through LinkedIn are 30% more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. That's a big deal when every hire counts. Early on, I learned that hiring isn't headcount, it's do I see my family this week? Do we actually release episodes on time?

[Jimmy Wales]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes to authors, thinkers to performers, even the occasional drug trafficker, former jihadi, economic hitman or national security advisor. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, and I always appreciate it when you do that, I suggest our episode starter Packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more. The that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on this show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today we're talking to the man who helped build the only corner of the Internet that somehow still works. Jimmy Wales, co founder of Wikipedia, patron saint of. Actually, let me check on that. And proof that trusting strangers on the Internet can create something other than a raging dumpster fire. Wikipedia is one of the last places online where the wisdom of crowds consistently beats the stupidity of mobs. And it's a site you can edit in your pajamas at 3 o' clock in the morning. Yet somehow it's more accurate than newsrooms with multi million dollar budgets. It's the place where passionate volunteers, many of whom could give Harvard professors a run for their money in bridge engineering or ancient Sumerian pottery, collectively create an encyclopedia bigger than anything the Britannica editors could have pulled off, even with a warehouse of Red Bull and a pile of graduate students. Today, Jimmy and I dive into how this whole thing even works. How it hasn't collapsed under the weight of trolls, vandals, propagandists and corporations with Scrooge McDuck level budgets. And why trust in institutions in and in information itself is in freefall. We discuss the crisis of parallel realities, why collaboration can raise humanity or imprison it, why transparency beats taking sides, and how assume good faith is not just a Wikipedia rule. It's a life skill that we've basically forgotten. All this and a whole lot more here today on the show. Now, here we go with Jimmy Wales.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I'm going to start with the usual pedestrian question I think everybody wants to know, which is how did Wikipedia come about? What was the original idea and why?

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, so I've been watching the growth of free software, open source software, as most people call it, and I saw programmers coming together to collaborate in new ways, you know, sharing their code and so forth, using free licensing. And I thought, ah, well, that's interesting. That kind of collaboration could extend beyond just software to all kinds of cultural works. And then I had the idea for an encyclopedia, got very excited and started Nupedia, the predecessor, and plugged away that for two years. That was not successful for reasons we can get into, but basically it wasn't very fun for the users. Then pivoted. We didn't say pivot back then, now that's a big Silicon Valley word, but pivoted to the wiki approach. And, you know, suddenly we had more work done in about two weeks than we had in almost two years. It was like, okay, wow, this might work.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

This whole farming Things out to other people thing. This idea has legs. Yeah, that's. It's funny how many articles are on Wikipedia now?

[Jimmy Wales]

Tens of millions. I should know the number. I just had it on a slide the other day. I want to say 60, 70, 80 million. That's across 300 plus languages, not all in English. In fact, less than 10% of it's in English, which is kind of amazing to people. I mean, you don't notice that because you're probably not clicking on occasionally Wikipedia.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Or Swahili occasionally German Wikipedia. Oh yeah, because it'll be like on Germany but not in the United States 1. Especially if it's a Europe based article. It's like, oh, this small village in the former Eastern Bloc, there's a German entry, but there's not an English entry.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, no, that does happen sometimes. It's actually kind of interesting how, you know, when we think about translating between languages, most people assume, oh yeah, people like English. Wikipedia is huge. They're probably translating it into their own language. But no, actually translating the other way is also a big thing.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I think if you are a German guy who is from the Eastern bloc and you move, you still live in Germany, maybe it's important to you to write about your family's old village in what is now Poland. But if you moved to the United States a hundred years ago and now your, your great grandkids want to read, whose hobby is really going back?

[Jimmy Wales]

That.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I mean, certainly some people on Wikipedia. But I was looking at my own family and it was all just kind of in German because it was so niche that only the Germans who had moved back to Germany from what is now Poland apparently cared enough to maintain that entry.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, you know, there was a big famous edit war in English Wikipedia and a big, huge, enormous discussion because the names of most rivers in Poland are known in English by their German names, which the Poles don't like because they're rivers in Poland and they're like, it's got a Polish name.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And there's a lot historical reasons we might not want to use German words for Polish things as well.

[Jimmy Wales]

Exactly. So it was a huge, huge discussion and sort of figuring out compromise.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

But yeah, I didn't realize that. Can you. Do you have an example? Because I'm trying to name a single river in Poland and obviously I can't do it.

[Jimmy Wales]

I'm pulling a complete blank.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Does the Danube go through Poland?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I don't know. This is American geography. People, apologies, but I don't think we're surprising anybody by not being Able to do this. One of the reasons I love Wikipedia actually is it. This is going to sound a little hoity toity, I suppose it, it restores some of my faith in humanity. Does that make sense?

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, it does because it's kind of.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Like the highest ideals we aspire to.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Like let's cooperate, let's all build something together that everyone can use.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

We'll make it free or free ish, almost free, operated at cost, whatever it is. And it's like it doesn't matter where.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You are in the world, let's all do this. It's like kind of what the Internet want to be everywhere or originally wanted.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

To be aside from a defense project.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But, but after, sort of after it.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Was darpa, right it was like let's all share knowledge and let's, let's just.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Be, let information wants to be free.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And it's all these sort of free spirited hacker types from the 90s and Wikipedia still is that but like Google's.

[Jimmy Wales]

Not that it is interesting because in the early dates of the project, so when I started Nupedia and then Wikipedia a couple of years later, that was the era when it was the dot com boom. And there was a scourge for a little while of pop up ads. Like every website you went to had a pop up ad. Mostly those are blocked by browser. Oh yeah, punch the monkey.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Punch the monkey. Yeah, that's right.

[Jimmy Wales]

And I mean one of my thoughts was like, you know what, most people when you first saw the Internet they're like, oh this is amazing. We can share knowledge around the world. I'm like I bet people would like sharing knowledge around the world. Let's try that. You know, like it seems to be what this technology is for, so let's do that first. And people loved it.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

So I remember using gopher as a kid, which is a base. I think it was a way to sort of surf libraries.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, it was just, just before the World Wide Web it was a way of like digging through menus on different. Yeah, most it was libraries and stuff.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I still, you know, up to a few years ago probably could have done the whole thing because it's all keyboard navigated, right. So I could like sort of, it was like G then this and log in, then this, this, this, this, this, this, this data. I'm at IRC chatting with people from other countries which was hitherto impossible.

[Jimmy Wales]

Oh yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And was like the, this feeling that you really don't get from many things nowadays where you're like I've unlocked a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Secret Portal to the entire world.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And you show your friends, and they're like, let me get this straight. This person is in another country talking to you, using the keyboard, and you're like, yeah, Mom. And they're like, wait, how, though? And you're like, I don't know, satellites or something. And they're like, how much is this costing me? Nothing. And they're like, I don't even believe you.

[Jimmy Wales]

Right. You know. No, I remember the first. You know, I got an email from someone in Australia, and I was like, I wonder what that cost the university. Because I was at university. I'm like, does a computer there, like, dial long distance to here? I mean, I didn't know anything about how it worked. And I started to learn because I'm like, oh, this is fascinating.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Well, remember getting excited? You'd hear you've got mail. And you're like, oh, who could this be?

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is great.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

This is exciting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Hold on, honey, I'll be right there.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I'll be down in a minute. I got email. I gotta check it.

[Jimmy Wales]

Gotta check it.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, those are the days.

[Jimmy Wales]

It's a Nigerian prince. He says, there's some money for me.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

You're never gonna believe this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We're rich.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Our problems are over. It is funny to hear you explain Wikipedia. I watched in preparation for this. I watched a bunch of your interviews. And you've been on your book tour. You went to the uk. There was a journalist on. I think it was the Sunday Times, maybe. And it was like, but there's no editorial control. And you're like, well, there is, but they're volunteers. And he's like, well, no one's getting paid to write. And they're like, no, they're volunteers, but nobody checks anything. It could be errors everywhere. And you're like, no, they actually check, like, everything. And they argue about everything excessively. If anything, they're maybe checking a little bit too much sometimes. And he's like, but they're not experts at all.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Well, many of them are bridge experts, and they're writing articles about bridges.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And he's like, but no one's making.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Any money on this.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Like, he's so confused. And you could just see his career sort of flash before his eyes where he's like, how long do I have before retirement? Because if people are working for free and the quality is decent, and they're doing it all over from all over the world, like, my days are numbered here.

[Jimmy Wales]

Oh, that's funny. Well, except, I mean, you know, it's interesting. Cause one of the things I always say is, nobody really works for free. It's gotta be fun. You gotta have some reward from doing it, which is just like meeting other geeks who are into what you're into, or just the process is just enjoyable to you and so forth. And it's really something. I mean, you know how you stumble across a page and you're reading it and you're like, who wrote this? This is amazing. Like, what? How did somebody know all this and why did they bother? Like, they're amazing people. And you just want to go like, can I get you a candy bar or something?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

If anybody wants to sort of see how this works, you can go to the Talk page. I do this when I prep guest, especially guests that don't have a lot of information about them. I go to Wikipedia, read the entry. But then you go to the talk page, which is where, like, for people who don't know, this is where editors who are helping keep maintain the page, they go back and forth on, do we include the fact that his daughter is a famous person? Well, yes, but, like, minimally. Oh, and then you're like, oh, who is that? I better look that person up. And then it's like, what about the crime?

[Jordan Harbinger]

He got accused.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

No, he was acquitted. This is just going to be a distraction. Let's keep it out of there. And you're like, oh, he was accused of a crime. I better use that.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, no, it's actually interesting because I say this to journalists a lot. I'm like, actually, go to Wikipedia, get yourself oriented, but go to the talk page. Because there, what you often will find is, you know, this source says this, but that source says that. And like, we can't figure it out. And it's like, well, there's your question right there. Like, this is something the world is interested in, but the existing journalism hasn't really fleshed it out. So, you know, that's probably an interesting thing to ask.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

One thing I've noticed that's kind of funny is I'll look for a question and I'll go, oh, they're going to. These editors are going to be so excited that this person clarified this thing, that they've been talking back and forth. And then I'll get them on record as the guest, for example, saying, oh, no, actually it was my brother who was accused of this crime. And then someone will add that, and then someone will revert that and go, he's not a source. And it's like, but he's the person. And it's like, well, who's who's checking that he's not lying about that. And you're just like, okay, I was talking. I had Yuval Noah Harari on the show. Oh, yeah, we were laughing. We're talking about Wikipedia. And it's like, we can listen to Yuval Noah Harari be like, this is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The origin of why we evolve.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

The ability to, I don't know, speak language. And people are like, wow, that guy's really smart. And then he'll try to put in his own Wikipedia entry. Like, actually, my real last name is this. We're from Lebanon. And people are like, citation needed, pal. And it's like, but it's my life and it's you trust me on so many more important topics. Why can't I clarify this?

[Jimmy Wales]

Oh, that's great. Yeah, yeah, I know Yuval, he wrote a really nice blurb for my book. I was very appreciative.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

He probably did that, praying that you're going to let him edit this thing on his Wikipedia page that he's so impressed about. But it's not up to you. It's actually kind of amazing that Wikipedia took off at all, in my opinion, because, and forgive me for putting it this way, it almost seems like a joke, like an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Come on. It's going to be full of total nonsense. It's going to be vandalized.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's going to be full of corporations.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

That pay publicists to go in there, write nice things about them, and every celebrity bio is going to have people just crapping all over them. It's going to be a waste of time and energy.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, I mean, that's what a lot of people thought. And in fact, it's one of the. To me, it's one of the more interesting things is to sort of take that initial thought that anybody would have and then really think through, like, okay, but how do we do that? Like, what is it? How does it work? You know, and it's a lot of details. It's a lot of. It's in the seven rules. You know, things like transparency, you can see every edit. You know, we try to be very open. Like, anyone can come and participate and, you know, you see something wrong, you can come in and change it, or you can come in and leave a note on the talk page and go, hey, you know, did you see this source? And then people hopefully will go, yeah, or sometimes they go, yeah, but, you know, blah, blah, blah, like you just went through. So, yeah, it's remarkable. But I think it's a It is a testament, as you said, it restores a bit of faith in humanity that there's a lot of just really nice people who just are like, yeah, this sounds cool. I'm going to help out.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Why not just digitize something that already existed, like Encyclopedia Britannica? I mean, look, now it's 100 times, I don't know, a hundred times. A thousand times larger than Encyclopedia Britannica.

[Jimmy Wales]

It's a bit bigger.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, yeah, A million times. I don't know. But in the beginning it's like, because encyclopedias I remember from being a kid and I'm sure you're similar age, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

You look in the wall of your.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

School in this whole shelf, this is one encyclopedia.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So you're like, yeah, we're just going.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

To recreate that for free over time and then eventually it'll be bigger. It's almost like a Herculean task to think it's going to be bigger than World Book or Encyclopedia Britannica.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we actually looked at the 1911 Britannica because it, it was in public domain, so it was out of copyright because it was so old and we could just copy it all in and start from there. And so people did. They copied a few articles in and then we were looking at them and you think, oh, right, you'll get the article about Thomas Jefferson. Like, what could possibly change?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

What has changed?

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, I mean, a lot. Like it's, it's kind of interesting, you know. Oh, ancient Egypt. Surely they had it all figured out by. No, no, there's been a lot of archaeology and things like that. And so, you know, like, I actually dug around. I mean, I found in my mom's house an old encyclopedia. I don't remember which brand it was, but you know, it's the article on bicycle. It said bicycle, men use it to go to work and women use it to go shopping.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Oh, my God.

[Jimmy Wales]

Wow. Like, okay, yeah, maybe, maybe that's not really the best definition of bicycle in the, in the modern day.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, no, because why would a woman wouldn't have a job or anything. That doesn't make any sense.

[Jimmy Wales]

Impossible.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Oh, God, yeah. Impossible.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Preposterous.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

One thing that I wanted to ask.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You probably for years now is what.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Do you think of every high school teacher ever being like, Wikipedia is not a source.

[Jimmy Wales]

You can't use it? Yeah, well, I mean, it's interesting when people, if they say you shouldn't use an encyclopedia. I wasn't allowed to use Britannica and cite it. Oh, you weren't no, like Britannica, you should use it as a starting point and then go do further research. I mean, if you're 13 years old and you wrote something, you put a footnote, we should just say, great, like you're moving forward, that's fine.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Right.

[Jimmy Wales]

But you know, actually citing Wikipedia in an academic context, particularly at the university level or higher. Yeah. It's not really a goal because that's not really what an encyclopedia is for. Now, if you say, don't even read it. Yeah, now, now you're probably wrong. And especially if you're telling teenagers, don't even read Wikipedia. It's like you can tell them, don't listen to rock music as well. Like, it's not a thing they're going to do. You know, they're 100% going to use it. But. But yeah, actually that has shifted. I just was talking to a high school teacher who just has always been an advocate of Wikipedia in the classroom. And there's always been people who are like, no, actually they should use it. And my thing is, like, and this, we can come on to AI. I'm sure at some point, this is what I say about AI today. Like, don't tell kids, don't use Wikipedia. Tell them how to use it. You know, like, what are the strengths, what are the weaknesses? You know, how do you understand it? Same thing with AI. Like, don't tell kids, don't use AI. Yeah, they're 100% going to use AI, but now they need to know how to use it. Right. It's going to be part of our lives going forward. So how do you think about the hallucination problem and all that?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I have questions about that that we'll get to shortly. I think people are probably wondering, how do you defend against trolls, vandals, the aforementioned corporations that I said, who they had billions of dollars, they're going to want something, they're going to want to control that brand image. And even now, if you look up Ukraine or you look up China, or you look up the Israel, Palestine conflict, I mean, these are their own small war zones of added wars, back and forth, very difficult.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah. So trolls and vandals, that's actually pretty easy. So the vandalism, somebody comes and replaces an article with poo poo head or something. We just revert it. I hopefully you get one morning, at least one morning that says, hey, you know, like, thanks for your experiment, but don't do that. Knock it off. And then you get blocked. And then the patrols, you just get blocked, you know, Again, if somebody comes in and they make a single intemperate remark in their new. Hopefully somebody will go, hey, you know, like, this isn't Twitter. That's not how you do it here. And then you get blocked if you, if you keep it up. Those contentious topics is always like, it's really hard. Like, there's so many things going on in the world. What we try to do in general, and this does work reasonably well, is to say, go meta, go one level higher. Don't take sides in the conflict. Just write about the conflict in a fair way, express what all the relevant sides say. And, you know, in my book, I talked to a Ukrainian Wikipedian who just. He's a real big advocate that Ukrainian Wikipedia should be neutral, even about the war. And his view is like, that's all we have to do, just tell the facts. Like, the facts prove our case enough. And I'm like, yeah, that's actually brilliant. That's fantastic. And then, you know, things like that. We talk about WikiVoice, which means, you know, it's said in the voice of Wikipedia. Paris is the capital of France. We just assert that. We don't say according to. So when do you use Wikivoice? It should be very sparingly. Like, ideally in an area with lots of controversy. We should not do that. Like, we. We shouldn't be saying one side or the other. We should be describing the conflict. That works pretty well. But obviously there's a lot of struggle.

[Jordan Harbinger]

There's weird.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

A weird edge case that I'm sort of dealing with. Like, I'll look at my page on there. Which, by the way, was a war zone for years. It was not notable, not notable enough. And then it was like, deleted. And then it was like, notable now. And people were like, well, he was deleted before. And it's like, well, people get more notable as they get more notable. And so then it was like marked as not deleted. And then people kept moving to deleted. Then that got banned because it was like, obviously you just have one out for this guy. And then another article got written. Someone didn't like it, rewrote it, but it was really poorly done.

[Jimmy Wales]

Okay.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

But it was more neutral in his defense. So people were going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And then finally someone rewrote the whole thing. And I was like, it's just going to get reverted again. But that user had gotten banned who was reverting everything for calling another editor and threatening them. Oh, so he had got, like, banned forever.

[Jimmy Wales]

That sounds Dreadful.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It was crazy.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And I was just thinking, like, wow, and this is my biopage. I mean, it was other people's living bio pages, so it's complicated. But I just thought, like, holy smokes, I'm basically nobody, right? On Wikipedia. And, like, there's a mil. There are literally millions of more notable people than some podcasts podcast around there.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And this is so people take this deadly serious.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

One thing that I'm dealing with now, I'm not asking you for advice. I'm just gonna use this to illustrate something or ask you to illustrate something. One thing that's very strange is people will put a fact in there, but it's got a little bit of, like, subtext that's odd. Namely, they'll go, harbinger is Jewish. And it's like, out of nowhere, just in there in a paragraph about where I went to school. And someone will revert it and be like, I don't feel like that's in there just to illustrate.

[Jimmy Wales]

That's very interesting.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And then they'll put in, like, he's Jewish and has acknowledged this when discussing the Israel Palestine conflict. And that'll get reverted as, like, oh, come on. You're implying that he's biased because of that. And then they're going back and forth, and then that user just sort of disappears. But it'll pop in every few months and then get taken out.

[Jimmy Wales]

It's interesting. I mean, I would say, you know, very often, like, it's one of the more complicated things of, like. Like, when do you note that someone is Catholic, so we'll switch it from Jewish. And it's like, sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. Like, actually, sometimes it's relevant to the biography, sometimes it isn't. And there's also an issue, in my opinion, I've seen both kinds of cases where you think you just want to put it in there because you've got some sort of a bias against Jews, or you just want to put it in there because you've got some sort of bias in favor of Jews. It's like, yes, we would like to claim the Nobel Prize winner in physics. Yes. What about Bernie Madoff? No, somebody wants to force it in there. And, you know, and it's kind of like, oh, come on, people. Like, let's be consistent. And. And like, yeah, for me, it's really about, like, to what extent is irrelevant. So my entry, I don't know what it says at the moment about this, but it's like, at one point, the categories is another. Another issue. Because unlike Most things that can be rewritten and rewritten to sort of smooth out the rough edges, to say, you know, so and so was born in a Jewish family, but isn't practicing or whatever. You know, you can. You can. And if that's relevant to their life because they talk or whatever. But categories, you're either in or you're out. And so somebody had put me in the category American Atheists, and I'm like, that seems weird to me. I mean, technically true in a certain sense, but I'm in there with, like, Madeline Murray o', Hare, like, people who.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Campaign about Sam Harris or something.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah. It's like, I'm not. It's not my issue. Like, I don't go around. It's not a thing. It's like, it's my private belief, and I don't make a big deal out of it. And I sort of regret that it was ever made public because, like, whatever. It's not a point. Right.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

It's as relevant as you having a beard.

[Jimmy Wales]

I think I've taken out. And I think in that case, or similar cases, we try, like, with categories, it's like, well, but is it relevant, like, just going around cataloging people who at some point were Christian or Jewish or whatever. Either ethnically, belief system, whatever it might be, is, like, generally don't know. I mean, it's interesting. Mine, just recently, this is my funny thing. I am both American and British. I have a British passport. I didn't grow up there. I'm American by birth. And then I became British, and I've lived there for 15 years, and I was really happy. It just made me, like, in a small, happy way, cool. Jimmy Wells, an American. British. American. Dash, British. I'm like, great, that's brilliant. And now it's gone. I didn't. I haven't bothered to check. Like, somebody just read it out in an interview. Like, oh, let me just read the first sentence. I'm like, yeah. Oh, what happened to British?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Somebody was like, not British enough for me.

[Jimmy Wales]

Sorry. I'm not sure.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I mean, sorry, pal.

[Jimmy Wales]

I'm like, hey, what happened there? That's interesting. That is.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

That's kind of a bummer. It's always amazing to me how there'll be a news event and you'll see it on breaking news on cnn or it'll be on Twitter, and then you go to that Wikipedia page five minutes later, and you're too late to make that edit yourself. It's already there. In fact, it's already there. Been reverted. Been edited by somebody Else had that edited by somebody else. It's already gone through 12 iterations by the time you're on. Minute number six of whatever notable event.

[Jimmy Wales]

Is really, really fast. And, like, one of the things I've done in the past is sort of my little mini, mini, mini hobby is whenever there's been a royal wedding, I try to change the name of the person. So, like, from Kate Middleton to Catherine and whatever her title, Duchess of Cambridge, you know, And I've been successful doing that a couple times, and it's just sort of fun. And I wait, I'm like, you know, I'm watching the royal wedding, and at the moment when they said, I pronounce you husband and wife, click. And it's like other people are trying as well. I did it. I did it. It's amazing.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

But there was a funny incident once that was very strange. There was a pro wrestler who was expected to be on stage and just didn't turn up. And it turned out they had died. But then, like, the weird thing was somebody had vandalized the Wikipedia entry to say they had died at about the time that they did die. And so then there was like this, like, what's going on here? Like, was it a suicide? And they did it about themselves on Wikipedia or whatever. Turned out somebody. It was just random. Somebody randomly vandalizes a joke. It was reverted very quickly, and then it emerged that sort of several hours later, this person had in fact died. They were ill and whatever.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Right.

[Jimmy Wales]

Ooh, that was weird.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

Because when. When this came up, I'm like, oh, wow.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Like, so do we call the FBI and give them the IP address of this person who maybe murdered the wrestler? Or do we let it go because they're 13 years old? Tell someone who's never heard of Wikipedia but only knows it's an encyclopedia that's editable by anybody. Tell that person, dad, why they should trust it. Because news agencies, pundits, right? They'll often say, oh, Wikipedia, left wing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Slash, right wing liberal.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

But whatever the bias is this page, what do you think of allegations like that?

[Jimmy Wales]

I mean, I think the important thing is our core policy is very, very strong. And I'm sort of campaigning about it all the time, which is neutral point of view. Like, neutrality is so important to our being trusted that we have to maintain that. So when we're accused of bias, what I always say is, let's take that seriously. Like, let's have a look, right? And sometimes you look, and it's sort of like we treat the New England Journal of medicine better than we treat a social media influencer who claims something like crackpot.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Thank God.

[Jimmy Wales]

No apologies, right? I don't call that bias. I call that sort of editorial judgment and being thoughtful about it. And at other times, you know, I look and I'm like, you know what? We could be a bit better. Like, this is saying something in wiki voice that probably shouldn't. And like, you know, we need to grapple with that. And so, you know, overall, what I believe is, like, what trust comes from is that ongoing willingness to get it right. This applies to all kinds of businesses and things. Like, people will forgive, like a business screws something up, okay? People will forgive that as long as, like, oh, you were really good about the refunds and you sort of examined the. Your process, like, how do we put out this crappy product? And now we've got to give the refund. And like, whereas, you know, stonewalling, pretending it never happened, continuing to put out, you know, oh, we've got the new version and somebody bought it and it's like, yeah, it's just as much sucks as the old one did.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

Then you lose trust. And so, you know, I think we shouldn't think that the only way to get to trust is by being perfect. Right? It's like being like, oh, transparent, honest and going like, oh, actually, like, one of the rules of trust is be transparent, especially when you have something to hide. You know, I like that to go like, actually, we aren't perfect here like that we didn't get this one right. You know, like, we're going to have a big discussion now and figure out what happened and try and fix it.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I would love to talk more about trust because we're facing this global crisis of trust across all news media outlets, obviously. But yeah, even among citizens, really. I mean, there's just. We're kind of living in a. I mean, to use the cliche, what the most polarizing time. Most polarized time, divided time, whatever. You've made a pretty good argument for why trust is key in society. I mean, the workplace, you need it in the workplace, you need it in the home. And Americans aren't just really divided on their opinions. We live in these sort of different realities, right, where we each have our own facts. And it's someone who's on the opposite end of a political spectrum will actually have different historical facts than somebody on the other side. Which is crazy to me, having grown up in the 80s where that kind of wasn't a thing.

[Jimmy Wales]

It's really troublesome and we all learned the expression alternative facts when it was Trump's first inauguration and there was a dispute about how many people attended. Right. And it's like, well, there is a fact there. And, you know, like, you can't just say alternative facts. It's like, there's only one fact.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

That was a Kellyanne Conway.

[Jimmy Wales]

You know, I. I don't really know anything about her and so forth. I'm just like, probably she regrets saying that, but.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Oh, I doubt it. I think that's her. Like, yeah, it might be.

[Jimmy Wales]

I don't know, but. But, you know, like, I do think this is a problem. And when we think of an issue. So I live in the uk, which, like many places like the United States, immigration is a big political hot topic. And I'm like, okay, like, the question of immigration, like, okay, what should our immigration policy be? How many people should we let in every year? What do we do about people who came here, like, unauthorized? Like, how do we deal with this? Right. 100%. All absolutely valid questions which we can then start to chew on. And people have different views on that and what we should do. But if we don't start that conversation with a real grasp of, like, okay, but what is the situation? Like, you and I disagree. Like, you think we should have a lot fewer immigrants. I think we should have a lot more. Fine, how many do we have today? Okay, we better start there, because otherwise, who knows? We might actually agree on the actual number. You just think there's 40 million a year, and I think there's 4,000 a year. And so suddenly it's. No, hold on. There's 47,000. And you might go, oh, well, that's not as high as I thought. And I'm like, oh, that's a lot more than I thought. And then we suddenly are like, oh, okay, fine.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I've seen this happen in real time. I mean, look, this is a complicated issue, so don't me, folks. But I remember somebody was saying, I can't believe Trump is just deporting all these people. And then someone else is like, do you know that Obama deported way more people than this? They didn't know. And we got the numbers out, and it was like, oh, that was also bad. And it was like, oh, okay, that's kind of the Right. Because if you're just on one team.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And not the other.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Then when your guy does something, it's okay. When the other guy does it, it's not okay.

[Jimmy Wales]

Exactly.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

But it was like, oh, I didn't know that. So it's kind of funny to see that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But you're right.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

You need to actually have the facts.

[Jimmy Wales]

And we can all fall into that trap, you know, where we've heard one side of the story and we're like, oh, okay, well, now I have a view on that. And then it's like, oh, oh, I didn't even have the facts right. Right. Like, I came to a judgment about what we should do based on incorrect information. Nobody likes that. No, Like, I don't think anybody likes that. And actually, sometimes I've had journalists who are like, are you people really want to believe. I'm like, no. Nobody wants to make a decision based on false information. Like, you end up doing the wrong thing and feeling like an idiot. And so this is one of the problems with the polarization in the media. I live, as I've mentioned, I live in London, live there for a long time now. And we've got two newspapers that I think are good newspapers, so the Guardian and the Telegraph. The Guardian's center left, Telegraph center right there. They're politically biased. That's okay. But what's funny is because they are a little bit too clickbaity at times. So I have an electric car. I love my electric car. I'm interested in electric cars. I don't have a Tesla. I have a different brand.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

How dare you?

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, and so I like to read about electric cars. And I've just noticed. You can just show me a headline from the last three days. There'll be some story about electric cars in one of these papers. I'll tell you which paper it's from. Just the headline. Because the Guardian loves electric cars, the Telegraph hates electric cars. And I'm like, now, what about trust? I actually don't trust either of them on this topic.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Jimmy Wales]

I sort of enjoy, in some very thin way, the Guardian articles, which are positive about electric cars, because I like it. But that's not what I really want to hear, Right? You know, like, one of the questions about electric cars is they're heavier, so the tires wear down quicker, so the particulate matter of tire pollution is worse for electric cars. I think a very basic fact, I mean, to the Telegraph, this is just like, oh, my God, it's killing us all. And to the Guardian, like, that's not even interesting. And I'm like, well, hold on.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Like, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, exactly. So where I end up is like, actually, I would really like to be able to go to my preferred paper and just say, like, oh, okay, well, like, here's the balance, and then they're going to be slightly different, all that, but try a little harder.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, that's interesting. I hadn't thought about the tire thing. You give an anecdote in the book about Charles de Gaulle.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Can you go through that?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Because I don't think we could be any further away from that kind of relationship with our allies right now.

[Jimmy Wales]

I don't remember what I said about Charles de Gaulle.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Oh, that's funny. I'll refresh your memory. And you know what? That's.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't. It's funny.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

When people write a book, they expect you to remember every single line in it.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah. I mean, I.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And you probably wrote it two years ago, this particular line.

[Jimmy Wales]

I did. But also, I mean, the funny thing is I just About a month ago, I did the audiobook and I read the whole thing, so I'm just spacing out to that.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I could also have the name wrong, and then I'll be the. A hole on this one. But what it was, was somebody had gone to, I believe, Charles de Gaulle and said, the Cubans are getting missiles from Russia. And they had all these documents and photographs, and Charles de Gaulle said, you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Have a word of the American President.

[Jimmy Wales]

That's a throwaway line. Yeah, exactly. Yes. No, I totally remember. The word of the President's good enough for me.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah. It's like. I was like, wait, that's it? That's all you need?

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, now I remember.

Yeah. And I mean, I think that is. Yeah. It's a shame that we don't have that culture anymore where, you know, where politicians don't feel basically a fundamental obligation to the office to not be completely partisan and politicized in every single thing you say, so that you can just, like, deliver neutral facts to another world leader who will then believe you because you, like, it's the President. Like, obviously they're not going to just make some shit up, you know, and. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And I really was quite proud of the US From a distance, living in London when it was Obama versus McCain, because. Got my agreements and disagreements with both of them, you know, some policies here and there and all that. But you know what? They're both proper people. Either of them is going to be presidential. They're not lunatics and so forth, and can't really say that these days.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

It's quite a shame. You give some really interesting examples in the book, which I also hope you remember about. I'm kidding. About brands that have used symbols or built trust in certain ways. I'd love to talk about this. I always find this stuff fascinating. Quaker oats, not apparently made by Quakers.

[Jimmy Wales]

I don't know. Yeah, yeah, no, that's. That's sort of funny one, because it is. There is a bit of a. An irony in the story, because the story is really about Quakers and they're like, the reason the Quaker oat people chose the brand is because at that time there was a lot of food adulteration. You might buy oats, but maybe there's a lot of sawdust in there to pat it out or whatever. Like it was a problem, to be fair.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Could you really tell the difference?

[Jimmy Wales]

Maybe that's what they thought. But the word Quaker, what it said to people was it says oats on the box. You know what's going to be in the box? Oats. Like, that's pretty straightforward. And it's because at the time the Quakers had a really good reputation in business that they would do what they said in an era when there was a lot more haggling, which, broadly speaking, I would say Americans hate haggling. It's just. It's very stressful. Nobody likes buying a car for this reason. And so on, and the posturing and the. And the lying that goes on of like, oh, this is absolutely the lowest price I can accept. Are you kidding me? And that's not really your lowest price, right? For the Quakers, if they said, this is the lowest price I can accept, that was take it or leave it, because they told you the true price that they would take or leave. And it was part of their religion, part of their belief system, which at first people thought, well, I mean, obviously you're going to fail in business because you're not playing the game. They didn't care. Like, that's our religious belief. So, like, this is how we live our lives. But it actually worked really well because suddenly it's like, oh, like, they do what they say. I mean, I say this about, for example, Amazon, like Amazon. You could have lots of complaints about Amazon. People do fine. I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about you order the thing from Amazon, it's going to come in the mail, it's going to be the thing you bought, and if there's anything wrong, you send it back and they give you your money back. Or even if you complain sometimes they go, we'll refund you. Don't bother sending it back because it's too much trouble for everybody. I mean, if you do it too often, then maybe they'll start, you know, Giving you a little grief. But generally they're very good about it. And that is trust. Like, nobody thinks, I'm not so sure about putting in my credit card number on this funny Amazon thing, because who knows if they're ever going to send my thing. No, they'll send your thing. We all know that. We accept that. We don't even think about that as being part of trust. But of course, that's business. Like, you can't do business otherwise. And so this is why we told you, you know the story of Airbnb, Uber. Like, companies that have had a real crisis of trust. And like, how did they recover from that?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I try to do that to some extent. I mean, it's a podcast. I don't sell anything directly, but we have ads on this show. And years ago, there was a company that did something that was not kosher, and a lot of people had bought this because I had advertised it. And so I ended up going to that sponsor and saying, you've got to refund my people who are over the 90 day thing, because you kind of lied about this.

[Jimmy Wales]

It's the right thing.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And they did up until they basically realized they were going to lose a lot of money. And then they decided they didn't care. So I ended up refunding some people out of my own pocket, which really stings, right? Because it's like, it's not my fault they lied to me, but it's kind of like the buck stops here.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I had to make this weird.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Decision where it was like, do I want my listeners to continue to trust.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Me, even if they're not sure about.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Trusting that particular sponsor?

[Jimmy Wales]

So I watch a lot of tech hardware video. I'm a super nerd, right? And I'm. I'm building out a home server and all that. So I watch all this wire cutter videos, and there's not wire cutter. That's actually. Do they have. I should look into that. I'm actually just YouTubers, right?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, Linus.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And a lot of them do, you know, they have sponsorship and they have. And they're generally good about disclosing. I think it's a rule on YouTube.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

FTC, the Federal Trade Commission will.

[Jimmy Wales]

And so. But you do wonder sometimes. And, and, you know, but I, and I like, you know, for some of them, you think, well, I know this YouTuber, there's never been a negative review of any product on this channel. And whether they're getting paid or not, because I'm like, they're trying to suck up to get more free stuff. I mean, that's what I feel like. So I like a YouTuber who like, oh yeah, thanks to so and so for sponsoring the video. But they didn't have any prior approval. And I also know sometimes they do like, I want to see you do that and then go, they provided the product, I gave them. No promises and a good thing because this thing sucks. You know, like, that'd be great. And then other people might be less willing to send them stuff. And so I always talk about, that's YouTube. But also, like, I like boats, I'm interested in boats. And I used to have a little speedboat in Florida. I loved it and so forth. And I like boat magazines, but I've never seen a negative review in a boat magazine.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Those are for sure all sponsored. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

And well, are they sponsored or they just don't want to rock the boat in the industry. Like, whereas it's slightly different with car magazines. Some of them are powerful enough that they can run a negative review. But I think these are little magazines. There's not that many people reading boat magazines, you know, but. And I'm just like, oh, that's interesting because it means the reviews, I just don't quite trust them as much. Right. Even if they're not sponsored, you're just like, well, you never say anything bad or you learn to read between the lines. Like, oh, we'd like to see a little more horsepower in this one. Like, oh, that means it's weak.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

You know, like, Wikipedia has a million.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Nerds with unlimited Internet and no bedtime. You know what else never rests? My shilling of the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

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[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

You this episode is also sponsored by Cachava, so our house has somehow become the official hub for holiday gatherings and this season we're expecting around 30 people and the food delicious. But by the time the third cheesy creamy deep fried holiday specialty hits the table, I am basically running on sugar.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Carbs and raw just pure adrenaline.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So to keep from grazing on every cheese board and cookie tray in sight, I'll start with a Cachava shake. Before the madness begins. Cachava gives you 25 grams of plant based protein plus actual real deal nutrition, vitamins and minerals for steady energy, fiber and probiotics to keep digestion from filing a complaint, protein and electrolytes for strength and recovery and B vitamins and minerals to keep your metabolism, cognition and immunity together. I love the vanilla and chocolate flavor, but Cachava has a new chocolate mint flavor that tastes like a holiday dessert without the sugar crash. There are no artificial flavors, no weird sweeteners, no gluten, no soy, no dairy. Just a genuinely delicious all in one nutrition shake. And you can try it totally risk free with their love it guarantee. Thousands of rave reviews think you're gonna love it.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, creators every single week, it is because of my network. I'm teaching you how to build your network for free [e-mail]. this course is about improving your relationship building skills. You can use it for business, you can use it for social. It doesn't matter if you're retired. It doesn't matter if it's your first year in the job market or you're not even there yet. The course teaches you these skills in non cringy, decidedly down to earth ways. Nothing awkward, just practical exercises that will make you a better connector, colleague, friend, peer. And six minutes a day is all it takes. By the way, many of the guests on this show subscribe and contribute to this course. Come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course again all [e-mail] now back to Jimmy Wales.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

People will ask me, well, your ads are all effusive about the products, so obviously we can't trust that. My retort to that is I just don't accept the sponsors for whom the product sucks. I usually get the product in advance and if it falls apart in my hands, I just say no.

[Jimmy Wales]

That's right. Yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

If it's gambling or crypto related or porn vaping, it just doesn't appear. You never hear. The reason I don't have a negative thing to say about it is because I tell them to kick rocks and we never take their money.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, totally. And I think that's right. I think it's right to talk about that because otherwise what does it mean for the whole of your podcast and the whole of the, and I, you know, I say this about there was, I used to be on the board of the Guardian newspaper and they had this real struggle because they don't have a paywall, they're ad supported, they're a non profit or owned by a nonprofit and they've got a big trust fund. And so you know, like it's complicated like and they're really trying to, to thread the needle on lots of things. And they really struggled with accepting sponsored content in the paper and it would be clearly marked on all of that. But like one of the ones was Volkswagen. Volkswagen was promoting their blue, they called it, their green initiative was called Volkswagen Blue.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Is that the one they lied about and had to scrap all the credits?

[Jimmy Wales]

Well, and then, and then the scandal broke and it was a little bit awkward. So even though it said at the top this is paid content, right. So on and so forth, it didn't feel great for the journalists there who had been assigned to write the stuff as sponsored content and so on for the brand, for the paper didn't feel great. And I mean in this case there was nothing wrong with this content. The content wasn't lies. It was like they had, I don't remember the exact signal. They had faked some tests or something like that. Yeah, what it was emissions test it was the.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

There was firmware on a chip that goes on the engine that was designed to, when it was being tested for emissions, run a certain way and when it was on the street, run a totally different way that didn't pass the admission stand. I mean, it was blatantly fraudulent nonsense. It was absolutely crazy.

[Jimmy Wales]

And I think all the more shocking again to bring it back to thinking about trust because, you know, there are certain companies which over promise and under deliver all the time. And you wouldn't be surprised but like Volkswagen, pretty boring brand to be honest. Like it's a perfectly good car and fine and like you wouldn't think Volkswagen's gonna scam you, but once a century.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

They do something pretty terrible so far. I don't know, it's crazy. There was so much food adulteration. You mentioned in the book that the food used to just be dangerous and kill people until 1906. Was it 1906 we started to pass laws about, hey, if this says it's milk, sorry, but it's got to actually be milk. I mean, that's insane to me that we didn't have any laws before that.

[Jimmy Wales]

I mean, it's funny because that's. Even if you take quite a libertarian view. Yeah. That's just not defrauding people.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

Like this isn't like onerous regulation. Like it's sort of like, yeah, don't do things that are stealing money.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

There are certain laws where they're treated more harshly because literally every even remotely well adjusted member of society knows not to do that. Like kill someone.

[Jimmy Wales]

Right.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Or hit. Stab someone.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And these are certain crimes where you go, if you park in a certain place and you weren't supposed to park there because it's Thursdays and everybody in that city knows that it's like that's way less of a crime than you stab someone. You go, I didn't know I wasn't.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Allowed to stab people.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

It's like no matter where you live on planet Earth, this is not allowed. And so those crimes are treated a little bit differently.

[Jimmy Wales]

It is funny how like social norms around certain things can be. So I have a house in the countryside in the UK where I live, and in the little village there's one little grocery store, there's like two parking spaces in front and then like a double yellow line up and down the street. And when I first moved there, I was like, oh well, you can't park there. It's a double yellow line. After some time I realized like, literally everybody does and that's it and nobody has ever gotten a ticket. And, like, that's just the rule. The rule is you sort of park anywhere along there. And I'm like, oh, some, like, the local council should probably, like, repaint the street, because either that or start giving tickets, but believe me, there's going to be some outrage because, like, people need to go to the grocery store, you know, they need to fix it. And I'm like, that kind of little stuff. Actually, this is one of the things about, like, when the speed limit was 55 and basically people ignored it because it was ridiculous.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

It's something like if the law doesn't make sense and people are just ignoring it and that's okay because, like, it doesn't make sense, then you undermine respect for the rule of law. And that's, like, not a great thing.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

This reminds me of, you know how every year the dictionary says, hey, this word that doesn't actually mean this. Well, it means that now because everyone's been misusing it so much. So literally now means figuratively or literally. So it's lost all meaning because you can either mean it literally or you can just be completely talking out of your ass and it means the same thing.

[Jimmy Wales]

I thought you were going to say something about six, seven, because. Oh, God, I just saw a story that's being added to the dictionary.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Three year olds are saying what?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't understand what it means.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

They're laughing and I'm like, can you explain this? Of course they cannot.

[Jimmy Wales]

They cannot. No one can.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

No one can. One Wikipedia cultural rule, I guess, if I can call it that, that I love is you always assume good faith. And I would love to hear more about that. I feel like we need to do that in life generally.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And you see it on Reddit, but usually you don't.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, assume good faith. It's not a suicide pact. Right. You don't sort of always assume everybody's of good will, even after they've really proven that they aren't here to build an encyclopedia. But it's like sort of that initial thing. Like, I mean, the simplest kind of example is you see somebody doing something wrong in Wikipedia and chances are. And like, the evidence proves this. And like, long experience is like, they probably just need to be helped out a bit. Like, have it explained. Like, oh, that's not how we do it. Or actually, like, I just reworded your sentence. It was a little bit punchy and shouldn't be. Or the worst would be is if you got in trouble because your footnote was not formatted correctly. Like, that would be so annoying. It's like nobody's required to learn our formatting footnote rules.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Luckily, the before they added is like.

[Jimmy Wales]

They added a link. That's great. Yeah. And so that assume good faith, it's even more important. So it's important in those first interactions, somebody first comes to site. But also when there's a heated argument, right. To try to remember this is a person on the other side and they're different from you and they're like you because they're people and people are all like that, you know, like, don't interpret every single thing they say as some kind of hostility. It's really easy to do online as we see in social media all the time, to jump to the wrong conclusion, read something into what they said. Are you really saying this? I actually didn't say that, no. And you know, it's very helpful, you know, that civility in the book, we, we say, your mother was right. We teach it to toddlers to, like, be nice to other people. And it's actually good. Like, it actually works. It's actually a very profitable mechanism. I don't mean making money, but it's a positive thing. It's like if you treat people as if they are all up to no good, first of all, you're gonna have a miserable life. But also people, like, they'll maybe live up to that, right? And that's not great. And instead, actually, I talk about this a lot in the context of teenagers and parents because I have teenage daughter and, and one who's now grown out of it and one who's about to be a teenager. And you know, it's like, okay, like with teenagers, what do parents need to do? Well, you need to start trusting them. And I, you know, I sort of advise, particularly if it's a bit of a problem situation. It's like, say, I'm going to trust you. Like, they want to go out and do something. I'm going to trust you. I want you to live up to that trust. And then we're going to have a better path forward. You go out a few times, you don't come home drunk, I'm going to trust you more. You come home and you didn't do what you said, you know, you, whatever, you forgot to pick up your sister from school, whatever. I'm going to lose trust. And you know what? Kids respond really well to that. Like, they really want, like, we all do a rational framework in life where, like, things make sense and it's like, oh yeah, actually my parents aren't tyrants. They're a little strict. But like, they do trust me a little bit and if I live up to that trust, they're going to trust me a little more. Great. Like now you've got a positive family situation. And that applies everywhere, like in companies like, I'll tell the now I'm on a rant.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

No, I like it.

[Jimmy Wales]

This is a good rant.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Crossing off things in my notes that you're covering with.

[Jimmy Wales]

The worst things I've seen are like these companies that when people work from home, they're using software to monitor their keystrokes and their mouse movements to make sure they're not away from their desk for more than a few minutes. And I'm like, what in the hell is that?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Like, and you go to Etsy and you find that there's a device that will just move your mouse constantly so that you can go to the grocery store.

[Jimmy Wales]

Like, so you, you are trusting somebody to do their job, whatever that is not enough that they are going to. And so it's like, you know what, Actually there's a reason why people want to work from home. It's because of the flexibility. If you said, you know what, we're not going to monitor everything you do. There are certain things you got to get done, you get them done, that's fine. And you know we're going to trust you and all that. And like, by the way, everybody understands, like you work from home this week because your kid's sick. That means, guess what? You're not going to be moving your mouse every five minutes. The kid's sick, you got to go out of the room. And you know what? We kind of expect you to, to make up for it. Stay a little late, hop on for an hour at night because you missed an hour during the day. And we're just going to let you do that. I mean, just the goodwill that you destroy by having that sort of paranoid approach to the people you work with. You're not going to get creativity, you're not going to get insight. You're going to, you're going to get people working to rule and nothing more. Because they're like, these people are not proper people. And I don't have to do this and I'm looking for a job like your job. Now, the reason I didn't move my mouse for five minutes as I went to the other non work computer and looked for a job.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yes, exactly. No, I, I mean, look, I'm not running Samsung or Microsoft But I always just trust my team to get things done on their own time. And we got guys like Bob, who's going to edit this in the show notes, and he's going to do it at 4:00 in the morning, Pacific time. And you know what? Fine.

[Jimmy Wales]

Fine.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And my engineer, Jace is in another time zone because he's near the from the UK as well. And it's like he's going to do this at a weird time on a weird day when he's back from his vacation. And that's fine. The only time it's not fine is if something doesn't work. And that is so rare in our business. It's so rare that something happens that is objectively like, oh, because you did this too late, or at a weird time, that it's not worth the juice, ain't worth the squeeze to solve the problem with some sort of tyrannical solution.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah. And like, the main thing is, did it get done in the podcast out on time, then the rest is not matters and that. That objective. No, obviously something I'm not saying think businesses and you're not saying businesses shouldn't care about time and all that. Like, I mean, it's sort of like, yeah, the grocery store is open until, you know, these hours of those hours, so coming in at 4am Ain't got to help. Right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, the store's closed. Right. On the other hand, it's sort of like at every moment when you can think about, okay, is there a way I could just extend trust and build a better relationship with the people I'm working with or who are working for me? If you're, you know, a manager or whatever, that's great because you're going to get so much more out of people and they're gonna like it so much more. Like, then it becomes part of their life to do a good job as opposed to you beating them down. And they're just like, whatever.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

The other thing it does is, let's say I say something on this show that sounds like it's iffy. It makes me sound, I don't know, casually accidentally misogynist or racist or something. It's clearly not my intent.

[Jordan Harbinger]

My team will catch that.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

They will edit that and they'll go, you probably didn't mean to say like this. And I'll go, oh, God, did I say that? Well, you cut off one sentence and then you started another one and it sort of sounded like maybe, but we fixed it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But if you are on their ass.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

About everything, they're Gonna go, you know what? Every time we make an edit he doesn't like, he crawls down my throat. I'm just not gonna deal with this. He said it. He said it. Let him deal with the consequences.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, no, that's great.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

But it's like, if you give them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

A trust, they'll go, I'm not gonna.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Get in trouble for changing.

[Jimmy Wales]

Oh, yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And then you go, oh, my God, thank God you took that out of the video, because that is clearly not what I meant. And they go, yeah, we got you.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. No, no, no, exactly. But also with your listeners, if you say something a bit punchy and they know you and they're like, oh, he didn't really mean it that way. Yeah, well, they might. Some people go crazy. I mean, it's the Internet, you know, but broadly speaking, you know, like, track records matter.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

In your book, you discuss what happens when companies or organizations take sides politically. I'd love to talk about this because.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I've only seen this go wrong, and.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Maybe that's a selection bias kind of thing. But I feel like I've never seen a company come out to squeaky clean doing this, ever.

[Jimmy Wales]

They can. So I will give a counter example because I do think it's worth noting up front. So Ben and Jerry's has always been a socially active, socially conscious company. It's part of their brand. So nobody's going crazy at Ben and Jerry for being woke, because it's been. And Jerry, like, if you don't like that, you probably weren't a customer anyway. And that's part of their brand. It works for them. Most brands, most companies. The problem with it is basically, first, nobody really wants to hear from you on this issue. Like, I don't really care what Pepsi's views on trans are. Like, I don't care. Like, it's not what I'm. This is not the relationship. I just want to know, is your sugary drink killing me? Well, probably, but, you know, but it's.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Delicious, so we'll overload, but it's delicious.

[Jimmy Wales]

So, yeah, so I. Yeah, I like it. But, yeah, okay, now. Now that's our relationship. And yeah, as you say, like, it generally goes wrong and, you know, it sort of. You've annoyed half the people. You probably haven't persuaded anybody. You know, I talk about this in the book because it's like, one of the mistakes I think people make is, like, don't fight other people's fights. Like, it's just not worth it. It's not the right thing. It's sort of like my. I try, I don't always succeed. But broadly speaking, I don't talk about general politics. Like, you know, if you ask me my views on Obamacare, I'll be like, my views are about as important as any other random person. Like, I'm not an expert in healthcare policy. Like, just because I'm known for one thing, that doesn't make me an expert on other things. And frankly, I don't think people should care, and I don't think I should campaign about it. If you say, oh, but, Jimmy, I saw you make quite a pointed statement about Internet public policy and freedom of expression, I'm like, yeah, that's relevant to me. Like, it does matter. That is my fight. Like, I've got Wikipedians who've been. Been arrested in various places for speaking the truth. I've got, you know, like, all these things going on, and it's like, actually, open public discourse is a value that means a lot to keep Wikipedia going. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna go to bat for that any way I can. But I do think it's a mistake, right, if sort of I start a campaign. I mean, maybe just in my private life, when I'm retired, I'm never gonna retire. I'm just like, this is my life. But, you know, maybe I'll pick up a cause and start campaigning for that. But broadly, I don't think I should, because it doesn. And so, you know, another example that I probably am out of step with a lot of my friends, which is to say, like, when Jeff Bezos, you know, instructed the Washington Post to not endorse a presidential candidate, I actually think that's a good idea. I think he was right. Although the timing was terrible, like, doing it just before the election, it was interpreted as him doing a favor for Trump or whatever, or that he secretly supports Trump, which I doubt, you know, whatever. But if they had done it at a proper time, say, after the previous midterm elections or something, you know, sort of just like, okay, like, we're done. And the evidence. There's, like, research on this that shows that political endorsements by newspapers lowers people's trust in the journalism. Even if they agree with the endorsement.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I would agree with that.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Just from my personal.

[Jimmy Wales]

Because you suddenly are like, well, like, now is the news headline. Is that part because the paper's going to bat for their guy? Like. Like, maybe they are, maybe they're not, but I don't know. I don't trust it anymore. And also, there's evidence. It's like, okay, the Washington Post endorsed the Democrat for like 15,000 years in a row.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Except for.

[Jimmy Wales]

Except for one. Is that right?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Ever since whenever. Since.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Basically my entire lifetime and then some.

[Jimmy Wales]

And it's sort of like nobody was like, I'm a Trump voter, but, oh, the Washington Post. Well, and I better reconsider. No, of course not. And all your readers who are, you know, left leaning because it's a left leaning paper, you know, they're not choosing their mind. They're going to vote that way anyway. So the whole thing is pointless. It's like theater for. To make I don't know who feel good. But it's not really the right thing. And, you know, so I'd like to see fewer endorsements. Or maybe a rare endorsement would be probably more effective. It might damage trust, but maybe you feel like actually we have to this time.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You're right.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

It has to be core to the brand. I mean, nobody is machine gunning cases of Ben and Jerry's. But Kid Rock, I believe, didn't he Machine gun a case of Bud Light? Because they were like, hey, we gotta do a trans thing.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And it got blown way out of proportion. I mean, it was.

[Jimmy Wales]

I mean, it was all ridiculous. But in this sort of era of crazy culture wars, it's sort of like, what's the point? Like Bud Light, it's just like a pretty straightforward beer.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Is it Chick Fil A, the fast food company that they're only open six days a week. Oh, yeah. And there was a large boycott. Cause they were. I'm gonna get this wrong, cause I'm going off memory. But basically they were like, anti abortion. There was a large boycott. And what they did, instead of saying, look, this is a religious franchise. This is how we feel. Instead of doing that, what they did is they. This is the opposite of. This is like anti transparency. They sent a letter to millions of people and it was, hey, I'm just a small franchisee. I own the Chick Fil A on the corner of, you know, Van Dyke and East Jefferson. You're hurting my business because of the corporate policy. I beg you to reconsider. But what they did is they sent that to every franchisee to plug in their location. So it was like, not from that franchisee.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It was actually from corporate to go against the boycott. But they didn't say that.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

They made it look like, hey, I'm just a guy who owns a Chick Fil A. Don't boycott me. I'm one of the People, but it wasn't. It was straight out of corporate communications. That was like a torpedo to the hull.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah. And you know, it's sort of like. That's a good example because Chick Fil A, they're closed on Sundays because the owners are religious. Right. That's fine. But then. Yeah, overstepping the line and then. Yeah, being a little bit. I don't know, like, that's kind of weird. Yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I don't know.

[Jimmy Wales]

One of my. One of my favorite youtubers. I'll even give him a shout out Network Chuck. He does Internet, like, networking, but also AI videos. He's really fun to watch. He's great. He's just recently started for like. Like 30 seconds. At the end, he stops and he prays for you, the listener. And he's really sweet and I'm like, okay, not my. Not my thing. But he's also really good. He's just like, yeah, you can click off now. We're done. He's like, maybe this isn't for everybody, but it's what I believe. Jesus saved my life. I'm like, you know what? I like this guy.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

Like, he's done it right at the end. If he sort of infused it through and started like preaching at me, I'd be like, well, now I'm out.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Like, he's doing it for himself on your behalf, not doing it to try and recruit you into his work.

[Jimmy Wales]

No. And I'm just like, yeah, cool, cool, cool, dude. Like, whatever. That's fine. Like, it's free country.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I found it interesting that you mentioned that even people who agreed with the agenda that the corporation takes, they lose trust in the organization, which is kind of surprising. The only increase in trust is from extremists who also agree with that perspective. So you're basically. Unless you are Ben and Jerry's words inside, like, the part of your ethos is this. You are losing when you do that. Which sort of brings about the question, and why do organizations take stances at all? Like, whose idea is this? If this data is relatively well known?

[Jimmy Wales]

I think the data may not be relatively well known.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And I might be the case.

[Jimmy Wales]

There's often the case. You know, there's a lot of different reasons. There can be, like, internal pressure and so on. Like, why aren't we making a statement about X? And then I think you need to have, as a leader, you need to have a good answer to that. Which is to say, well, like, you know, we're not the right people, obviously. You know, if it's something about discrimination or something like that. Then it's like, yeah, but I mean, our statement is our company policy. And, like, we are going to do the right thing. We're not going to campaign about it, because, frankly, we sell coffee cups like, nobody cares. Like, that's not something we should be weighing in on.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Transparency. You mentioned that earlier. Not hiding things. Call balls and strikes, even if it's against your own side. That's crucial.

[Jimmy Wales]

Definitely.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

The Airbnb example is really good. Would you take us through that?

[Jimmy Wales]

Oh, yeah. So Airbnb, like, early on in the history of Airbnb, they had this huge trust crisis. So what happened was this woman put her. I think she was here in San Francisco. She put her apartment on Airbnb, and then somebody rented it and absolutely trashed the place. And they got bad advice, pr, legal advice to basically stonewall. Don't admit responsibility. You'll make it worse. And after a few weeks, they were like, it was just getting worse and worse and worse because this woman wrote a very emotional, you know, like, I'm sitting in the stairwell of my apartment building in tears. I can't bear to go back in and see what happened. And the company was doing nothing to help and so on. And they realize. And people have been saying this to them for a long time. Like a venture capitalist told them, you're gonna get somebody killed. Like, this whole thing is crazy.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

They have been killed in Airbnbs or hotel. Oh, yeah. I interviewed Brian Chesky, who's, like, a really, really good dude, as far as.

[Jimmy Wales]

I think that's right.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And it's very rare.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

But it's like, they rent the place out, but then they have a key and they're hiding in the closet. When the person comes in again, it's. Yeah, it makes the news because it's like, what in the psychopath just happened?

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they realized, like, if people think a normal thing that's going to happen, you put your house on Airbnb and it gets trashed. We're going to have no landlords. We're going to. Nobody's going to participate. So they basically, like, pushed the brakes on the whole company and put said, like, everybody has to work. We have to think. We have to brainstorm. Like, how do we build trust? Like, people aren't trusting us. In fact, it's gotten really bad because we screwed up this whole situation so badly. And they did a lot of things. They made a lot of changes at that time. Like, I mean, at the time, apparently you could rent a place with just an email address.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Crazy.

[Jimmy Wales]

Anonymously. So like some rando who can't even be tracked down after the fact is going to get your keys and go and sleep in your house? Like, oh my God. Like, that's clearly a stupid idea. And this isn't about. Oh, I mean, I actually think anonymity online's a good thing. It's, you know, like. But largely that's not somebody sleeping in your house.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

So once they're in my bed, I draw the line. I want to know who you are.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, you gotta. And so you now you have to upload your ID and sort of prove your existence and all that. And a lot of the. Oh, like, you know, indemnity, like insurance. It's like, yeah, if somebody trashes the place, then everybody's got a policy of like, we're gonna make you whole, we're gonna fix it for you. I was like, oh, that's actually really good. Like that. That sounds like a good thing.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I'm kind of surprised that they didn't start off with that, but I guess they just weren't thinking about that particular.

[Jimmy Wales]

I think that was. And it was kind of. It was one of these examples. This is my opinion on it. It was one of these examples of 20 something tech bros who don't have certain fears because it's not been part of their experience. Just not thinking it through, you know, it's like, oh, like, that never occurred to me that people would be afraid about that. Cause I'm not. You know, you think about, like, for my mom, she was very nervous about Uber for a long time and it was actually reassuring to her to learn. It's gps. Like, your phone is on gps. Uber knows where you are every second of the journey. The driver knows that Uber knows where you are. Like, they can't just drive off with you, right. And dump you off in the woods somewhere because it's all going to be tracked, your phone's tracking and so on. Oh, had fun of it. Oh, and by the way, like, Uber does vet the drivers like you. You don't just sort of sign up on the app and start driving. Like, they actually check into you a bit and things like that. Oh, okay, great. Like those steps taken to build trust because it's quite a thing to like.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

You know, but as a guy, you're like, whatever, I'll just choke him if he's. He blocks me.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I never, I never thought about that.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, I could take him. Yeah, yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

We all think, what, Only one bear?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jimmy Wales]

I Can take one bear.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

But like that's when I get into a Prius. I'm not thinking, I hope this person's not a psychopath. I hope I get to the airport. Right. But I guess, you know, if you're a 15 year old girl, maybe you're a little rightfully more concerned that this person.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, no, and there's, there's great stuff. Like I didn't talk about this detail in the book. I just happen to know about it. Like, like Uber now has like teen Uber, which my daughter uses in London. What's the difference? The difference is when she requests a ride, it's, she's a sub account. Under my account I get notified. I can track where she is.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Parental control, Uber.

[Jimmy Wales]

Parental control, Uber. And it's like, it's really great. It's sort of like, you know, like, oh, do I let my 15. I mean she's very trustworthy. But you know, like for some people, I mean like when I was 15, 16, I, and I was driving around, that was actually frankly quite a bad idea. I was, I was loose, you know.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

But, but I was hitchhiking in Ukraine when I was 20. I don't know if I have any room to be like, this is a terrible idea.

[Jimmy Wales]

Exactly. It's like, oh, okay. How will parents think it's okay for their kid to take an Uber? It's like, well, I get notified when they get the Uber. Yeah, I can see. Oh, almost. Tom, you know, it's great.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

How do we take a trust inventory of our organization? I mean this is, I could ask this question a million different ways.

[Jimmy Wales]

Sure.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

How do we stop taking trust for granted? How do we rebuild trust in our organization? How do we rebuild trust across society? Pick whichever very hard question you would like to answer.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, I mean I think that trust inventory in an organization is really. I just picked the easiest one. But like, you know, I think organizations that have had a trust crisis or you have a trust problem, this is really obvious. But I even think companies that don't should actually take a moment and companies are always doing like away days and things like this to brainstorm. Oh, do one on trust. Like say like actually we need to think about what are the things that we've done in the past that caused our customers, our partners, our employees to trust us and where did we maybe fail? How can we improve those things? Because like trust buys you a lot of space. Let's say you've got a customer and you suddenly realize like actually we're going to deliver, but we're Going to deliver two days late. If you have a good trust relationship and you can go to them early and say, like, we're seeing this problem emerging and you know they aren't going to go mental, like, it's all going to be fine and they're going to trust you and they're going to like, want a discount and whatever, but you can cope with that. That's much better because you've built up that trust. A relationship where people are like, oh, yeah, well, like, stuff happens. Supply line problems, whatever. Like, oh, like half your staff quit because of whatever. You know, like, okay, like, we'll, we'll work it out. We'll find a way through. And, you know, that's just like good business.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

The classic trust example I always go to is how the government kind of bungled it with COVID and masks. And even if you talked about this in a couple of your media hits, which was like, like, don't buy masks.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Why?

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Because they don't work. Oh, okay, well, then we won't. Wait a minute. You're getting masks for the hospital?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Well, I thought those didn't work.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Well, actually, we just told you that because we didn't want you to go buy the masks when we needed them for the hospital.

[Jimmy Wales]

Now, by the way, they're mandatory.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And now it's like, they're mandatory. So wait a minute. So then we're panic buying it and then when they go, you don't really.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Need to worry about this.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

We're like, well, you said this other thing. We can't trust anything that comes out of your mouth because the stakes were.

[Jimmy Wales]

Too high in the uk, We, I frankly think it costs the, the Conservatives the election, although they might have lost it anyway. But it was this very emotional, like this spectacular photography. Spectacular, sort of poignant. When Prince Philip died, the Queen, you know, her husband has died. She's in Westminster Abbey, the church for the funeral, and she's sitting literally all alone. No family, no, no, nobody. Because they had to protect the Queen from COVID Oh, okay, fine. So that's very moving. It's like, oh, these are really tough times. And everybody loved the Queen. Like, she's just no trouble at all. She was great. And then we emerges a little while later that the night before in number 10 Downing street, which is like the equivalent of the White House, they were having a party and people were like, are you kidding me? Like, at a time when none of us are supposed to be doing anything, you are having a party while the Queen's got a. Like, that's just not okay.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

You've seen the Gavin Newsom thing where he was at, like French Laundry up in Napa having a party with no mask on.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And it was like the same day he had told us to all stay home. And we were just like this guy, right?

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and it's exactly like, oh, wow. Like that piece of trust and you know, like the Queen, like, whatever your views are in the abstract on the monarchy, like, people trusted the Queen.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Sure.

[Jimmy Wales]

You know, and so actually when she came out at the beginning, I mean, they trot the Queen out, everybody listens, and she says, this is a serious thing. We've all got to stay home. We will meet again. Brilliant. And everybody's like, all right, yeah, we're British. We're going to do the.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

We're all in this together. Well, except for those people. They don't have to follow any.

[Jimmy Wales]

Except those people who are supposed to be in charge of the country. Yeah. Not okay. Not okay at all. And so that kind of stuff, it's bad in the moment, but it's also corrosive in a longer term way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Definitely.

[Jimmy Wales]

You know, that you're suddenly like. And, you know, if you've got a situation where people are like, well, they're all liars, they're all criminals now, I'm going to vote and if you tell me my guy, you know, committed a scam of some sort, I'm going to be like, yeah, they're all like that. And like, oh, no, they're not all like that. Or they shouldn't all be like that.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Your guy's worse, though.

[Jimmy Wales]

And in fact, I think as voters gotta be pretty harsh on these things, you know, to go like, actually, you're in a position of leadership, you're in a position of trust, like a teenager. We should say to them, I expect you to live up to that trust. I'm going to be really disappointed in you if you don't, you know.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Well, we reciprocate the trust we get from our government and we do.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah. And so there's all kinds of things that can undermine that.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

On Wikipedia, you can ban bad actors and people who don't assume good faith or act in good faith. You can't really do that in society at large, I think.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. If you're talking about the problems of social media, we can get quite in a depressed mood of like, oh, it's so toxic.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

It's a different podcast.

[Jimmy Wales]

And if we think about this, like, you go to McDonald's and you eat your food, and you've got your tray, and you've got your, like, bits of paper and so on. What does everybody do? They go over, they put the paper in the garbage can, and they put the tray on top, and they walk out. And nothing bad would happen to you if you didn't do that. You'd be a jerk.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

You know, in Europe, they don't do that. You know, how weird that you ever go to Europe and go to McDonald's. You don't clean up your stuff, right? Oh, yeah. And you go, I'm just gonna leave it here. And my friends are like, yeah, you leave it. And they clean it up. And I'm like, no, no, no. I gotta throw it away. And I'm walking around looking for the trash can, and it's not there because.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They take it and they put it.

[Jimmy Wales]

In the one different system.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So you're like, I can't just.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I remember the first time I was like, you can't just leave your wrappers on the McDonald's table.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

You caveman. How dare you. This is offensive. And they're just like, no, dude, you can have a beer from the machine, and you can leave your crap on the table.

[Jimmy Wales]

Those are the differences. So it's different system, different rules. But, you know, it's not that Europeans aren't trustworthy in the same way. It's just. Okay, different rules. But, like, you know, whenever you feel a bit of despair, you're like. Like, you know, look at that guy in his MAGA hat. Or look at that lefty.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, guess what?

[Jimmy Wales]

They're all just gonna put their stuff in the bin.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Speaking of bad faith, untrustworthy Internet grifters, it's time to pay those bills. We'll be right back.

This episode is sponsored in part by Masterclass. I'm one of those people who always wants to be learning something. Do you ever catch yourself mindlessly scrolling social media? What if you swap that time doing something that'll better yourself? Instead of losing 20 minutes to the algorithm, Watch a short masterclass lesson and walk away feeling like you actually fed your brain. And the best part is, you're learning from the best people in the world at what they do. If you want to handle tough conversations better, you've got Chris Voss, the former FBI hostage negotiator, of course, a guest on the show. If you want to build better habits going into the new year, my friend James Clear right there, he's got. You want to tell better stories? Michael Lewis, of course. Improve relationships. Astaire Perel the structure makes it so easy. Everything's in bite sized lessons. You can squeeze in between holiday chaos and watch it on your phone, your laptop, your tv. There's even an audio mode for walks or commutes and if you're traveling, download classes to watch offline. You get over 200 classes, unlimited access and plans start at 10 bucks a month billed annually. Plus there's a 30 day money back guarantee. So no pressure and it actually works. 88% of members say Masterclass has made a positive impact on their lives.

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[Jordan Harbinger]

Jordan this episode is also sponsored by Progressive. You ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. This episode is also sponsored in part by Quiltmind. Most people don't post on LinkedIn not because they don't want to, but because nobody has time. You open the app and you think I should post something and then boom. Three meetings, two emails, a crying child later, that thought is gone forever. I get it. I was a professional lurker for years. So the people who do post even simple stuff end up looking like industry superheroes. They stand out, they get engagement and suddenly everyone thinks they're the most active, insightful person in the room. And honestly, if you want to stand out in any marketplace as a hire, as a consultant, or just somebody who knows what they're talking about, visibility is one of the best investments you can make. Whenever I post, I get DMs from people I haven't talked to since 2014. It keeps you top of mind, which is everything when opportunities pop up. But consistency is the hard part. Nobody has time to sit around polishing the perfect post. That's where Quiltmind saves you. You send them your messy ideas, your half baked thoughts, your voice notes recorded in the car. They turn it into clean, scannable posts that sound like you. It's like having a tiny editorial team whose only job is making you look smart. If you want to see what my posts look like find me on LinkedIn. If you want Quilt mind to help you show up without sacrificing your sanity, message me or email jordanaudiencewiltmind.com that's Jordanaudienceu. I L-T M I N D COM. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support the.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Amazing sponsors who make this show possible.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All of the deals, discount codes, and ways to support this podcast are searchable and clickable on the [e-mail] deals if you can't remember the name of a code or you can't find it, email us please. Jordanordanharbinger.com, we're happy to surface codes for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Jimmy Wales.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Speaking of left and right wing bias, do you think Wikipedia has a left wing liberal bias? Because some people definitely accuse y' all of having that.

[Jimmy Wales]

I do and I don't. So I think broadly, we're in a good place on that. And not always, like, I just think, you know, what we have to say is like, neutrality is our policy and we should vigorously pursue that. Now, some of the complaints we get are just not reasonable. Like, I, there was a think tank or something that put out a thing saying something like, you know, Wikipedia's ban all conservative sources. And it's like, yeah, if you think the Wall Street Journal is a communist rag, then yeah, maybe so. But like, we haven't banned all conservatives. That's nonsense. At the same time, you know, it's sort of like, okay, let's grapple with it. This is always, my approach is like, okay, if there's a complaint, let's figure it out. Like, let's assume good faith in the complainer to start, right? And then you dig in a bit and then you're like, oh, okay, actually nothing here. And in other cases you're like, ooh, hold on, let's chew on this a bit more.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, if they're complaining that you can't link to, what is it, like Der Sturmer or something like that in Wikipedia? Maybe we're not the problem.

[Jimmy Wales]

Well, and I do think, like, one of the issues is we do have a rise in low quality media. I would say that the right just objectively speaking, has a few more of those that have gotten quite popular. And it's not about the left or right bias of that outlet. We can cope with that. But it's like, oh, what about the quality? Like, are you correcting errors? Are you running inflammatory stories that don't hold up? You know, I've been saying, like, if any sort of right wing billionaires want to start funding some kind of really high quality, thoughtful, intellectual conservative media, I think that would be a good thing.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Thing.

[Jimmy Wales]

Because the right deserves better than some of this crap that they're following. And, you know, like, let's have a real intellectual boom on the right. Like, why not? Like, that would be great.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

A lot of the sources I know people are going to get upset about this, but a lot of the sources I see on the right that are crap are kind of like just clickbait farms. It's not even like, oh, you disagree with this opinion. You won't read something well reasoned on some of these. What is it called? Like, grays Gateway pundit. It's like they're just making things up. It's not news, but with a right slant. It's just, just fake. So I just want, because we have listeners all across the political spectrum, I want people to be clear. We're not talking about the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, we're talking about.

[Jimmy Wales]

And if I'm like, one of the messages that I want to have for people all across the political spectrum is like, be kind and thoughtful and come and help us be network Chuck, you know, and like, believe what you want to believe, do good work, treat other people with respect to. That's fantastic. Like, you'll make a great Wikipedia.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

A lot of people think that you personally make millions or even billions from Wikipedia. I would love to talk about that because I was hoping to have our next conversation on your yacht.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. So Wikipedia is a charity. So nonprofit organization. We are, you know, largely volunteer driven. We've got a few hundred employees, mostly more here than anywhere else, but few dotted around the world. About 175 million ish budget, annual budget. So quite low compared to any other top five website.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Sure.

[Jimmy Wales]

And yeah. And by the way, I am not an employee at all. I'm a volunteer. So I make my money in other ways. And if people think that's great, they should buy my book.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

That's right. I was gonna say those book dollars.

[Jimmy Wales]

Man, keep them rolling in, but broadly for me. So one of the common questions I get from journalists is like, ooh, how does it feel to not be a billionaire? And I'm like, I don't know. How does it feel to you? How does it feel to all of us? That's not A thing.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

How does it feel to not be a billionaire? I don't know. Ask literally everyone on the planet who's not. There's a few more options.

[Jimmy Wales]

So, yeah, no, we're a funny fish. And actually, I think our business model, which is donations and not.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Not.

[Jimmy Wales]

We're not funded by a few wealthy donors. We're not funded by governments. We're funded by the small donors.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Got my five bucks a month rolling in.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, it's massive. And it's really important because it gives us intellectual independence. The community has intellectual independence. Nobody can lean on us and go, oh, right. Well, this article, like, I'm your biggest donor, and this article I don't care for, then if we were financially under the thumb, that would be bad. You know, sometimes people say, ah, you know, like, why don't you get, you know, Google and Facebook? And why don't those guys.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

What could go wrong? Yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, they should donate more. Sure. But I don't think we. Nobody wants that because just think that through. Like, that might not be great. And it's not because I'm anti.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

You know, have Vladimir Putin donate while you're at it. See if he wants to change any of the content of the article.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. That's. I'm sure there are multiple authoritarians who'd be happy to open the checkbook for us. And it's like, no, I don't think so.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

So how does Wikipedia respond to government pressure? Is there? Probably not from the United States, I would assume.

[Jimmy Wales]

Mostly not.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Mostly not. Tell me, tell me more.

[Jimmy Wales]

We got this really weird letter from the D.C. interim District Attorney, but he didn't get the permanent job. That's sort of the end of that, I guess.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, I guess.

[Jimmy Wales]

Like, really asking a lot of pointed questions that I thought were deeply inappropriate.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It.

[Jimmy Wales]

In a society with the First Amendment, like, that's not a thing that. You're the government. You're not allowed to do that. This is where I said, like, it's great that we've got staff who actually run things in a very calm and sensible way. Because back in the day, I would have just written, you know, go yourself. Like, you know, and that's not the.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Best thing to do on legal letterhead, though.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah. What we did was we. We just responded like, we're like, okay, let's assume good faith. We'll just answer your questions. It's like, yeah, you know, yes, as a matter of fact, we do allow foreigners to edit Wikipedia. We're A global website, like, that's not a thing that you could be upset about. So anyway, we just try to do that around the world, basically. Yes, we've been blocked in China for quite a long time now. We were blocked in Turkey for about three years, and we fought that in the courts in Turkey until we won at the Supreme Court in Turkey, which I'm quite proud of.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

That's actually shocking.

[Jimmy Wales]

And we didn't compromise one spec on Wikipedia. We don't censor content to satisfy governments. And we were very fortunate. So actually, this is one of the areas like. So a lot of Internet companies have been. Some are better than others in various, you know, you get down to the details, they're better or worse, but, you know, generally they cave in quite quickly. Even Elon Musk, proponent of free speech, just caved into censorship in various places. And. And I think they thought we would, but we're like, actually, we're principled and. No, we're not. And in fact, what's interesting about our business model, a lot of money from small donors who really believe in Wikipedia, believe in the ideas that I'm putting forward about the fundamental human right to access knowledge and to participate in dialogue and discourse about the facts of the world. Our donors would probably punish us quite hard.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Oh, for sure. If you changed stuff to go in China.

[Jimmy Wales]

If you changed, yeah, big, like, great news. We've decided to go into China and we've allowed, like a Chinese university to take over Chinese Wikipedia and they will handle making sure the content is legal in China. People would say, oh, my God, I'm so disappointed. Like, that is so out of character. That's so wrong. This goes back to our thing about when should you take a political position? In our case, like, that's one we'll take. Like, we don't censor Wikipedia. We're not going to. And, you know, it's actually getting to be more complicated because all around the world we're seeing the rise of more legislation that is, you can tell the people writing it, their mental model is Facebook or Twitter or whatever. They don't really understand how Wikipedia works. And so they want to impose duties on the organization to do the content moderation and things like that. I'm like, well, we don't do that. Like, our community does that. And in fact, if you forced us to have to do that, we would be undermining our volunteer community. Like, it's not going to work. It's a bad idea. And you know, other things, you know, like restrictions that would require us to identify users and things like that. Gather data we don't gather now. Like, basically, you know, I do try to be diplomatic a bit and I'm also like, you know what? We didn't do that in China, we didn't do that in Turkey. We're not going to do it in your country either. So, you know, take us as we are.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I've got a friend who's an editor from Iran, and this person is Anonymous, which is not. And they use a vpn and they.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Think they were blocked for a while.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And they had to be like, hey, the reason I'm using this is because if I get caught doing this, I'm going to jail.

[Jimmy Wales]

No, it's legit. And I like, that's, you know, user privacy is massively important.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I assume Wikipedia is blocked in Iran? No, no. I'm very surprised.

[Jimmy Wales]

Here's a funny thing that, that, that happened. So we used to be not encrypted and now we're encrypted. So just for most people, they may not know what that means. So, like, if you visit a website and it's HTTP, then that's in the clear. Anybody spying on your connection can see what you're reading and all of that HTTPs, like when you go to your bank, they can see that you're talking to us, but you can't see which page you're reading or what the content is. So when we moved to HTTPs many years ago now, we thought, thought, this is going to be interesting. Because at the time a lot of countries were, they were often filtering out political opposition and things like that. So there was a lot of that going on. And I was like, well, okay, when we do this, we should expect we're going to get blocked in a lot of countries around the world. No, we didn't. And I think what it came down to is because they could no longer filter certain pages, they had a decision to make. You can block all of Wikipedia or you can have all of Wikipedia. And a lot of them are like, like, I guess we'll just have Wikipedia then. Like, because they know we're not radical, we're not whatever. But that's really important because it does mean, like, if you are in Iran and you have questions about human sexuality and you want to read about it, like you need privacy, like, you need to be able to do that anonymously. It's really important that you can do that. And, you know, I think what they decided was like, actually Wikipedia is so useful, whatever, can't control everything that's interesting and that's great news.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Where is Wikipedia block? China, China, North Korea probably.

[Jimmy Wales]

I always joke about North Korea is like the one guy with a computer can look at anything he wants. Right. You know, so.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Right.

[Jimmy Wales]

They've got a broader, like. Yeah. So I. I wouldn't say Eritrea probably.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

It's blocked, I would imagine.

[Jimmy Wales]

I don't think so. I don't really.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

That would surprise me if they were open there.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So just China.

[Jimmy Wales]

Just China. The end. Yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Wow.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Wow.

[Jimmy Wales]

We've had, you know, we've had various short term blocks and things like that we've dealt with over the years, but, you know, that's the only one that's really. Right now.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And where are the servers?

[Jimmy Wales]

All over the place? Yeah, kind of all over. I mean, fundamentally in the U.S. but we do have caching servers and things because you gotta deliver cdn like the speed of light to go all the way around the world is like a half a second, so. Which is surprising that. It's true. For me. It was surprising. It's that slow. I didn't realize that, but I just thought it. Well, yeah, if you're loading a webpage, that's meaningful and so we need to like stage content near people.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

But we have to be very thoughtful about where are those servers, Are they in safe places and so on.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah. I was curious about that because.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Well, you.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

I mean, it would be crazy if. You just never know if they're even if they're in the United States. Hey, we're shutting this down until the DOJ investigates that all these are compliant.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah. I. I've not in the past worried much about that these days. I think you have to at least do a little bit of contingency planning.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wales]

And think these things. I don't think there's any imminent threat, but. Crazy times.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, crazy times. Exactly. What do you think are the incoming challenges for truth? For sourcing news and information from AI generated content?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because before you'd see a photo on.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Twitter and it would be like, look what Israel did. And then somebody would be like, three days later, this is a photo from the Syrian civil war. But now it's like you could put Israeli flags and Israeli soldiers and people that look like real Israelis in there and it's just fake.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah. No. So I think this is a problem. We've been fortunate that people are widely aware these days that like just seeing a photo, actually I think it was a really important and positive moment. There was a very famous photo of Pope Francis wearing an expensive puffer jacket. And it went Viral. And it got a lot of news coverage because it's like, obviously fake. Like, this is. Pope Francis was quite famously, he didn't take advantage of any of the luxury. Like he lived in a dorm room, that sort of thing. Like, he would be, he wouldn't be my first choice of a Pope who goes in for the grandiosity of the office. Right. But people knew that and that, like, oh, wow. Like it really looks real. And that's important that people should know. Like, just because you see something floating across social media, that doesn't mean it's true. And I hope it's actually pushing people in the direction of saying, actually I do care about old school journalism. Like, I want to know where that photo came from. Is it from a trustworthy news organization? If it's from Reuters, that's one thing. If it just rocked up in my Twitter feed, that's completely different. My little personal story about this was, I saw, you remember there was a dam in the Ukraine war, A dam in Ukraine, which got blown up and flooded, like a huge portion of the country. This is a few years ago, A few years ago. And people have been worried for some time that this. Because it's like a major piece of infrastructure there. And then I was actually in the, in the US at my mom's house and it was late at night and I just saw on social media, I saw this little short video of like drone footage of water gushing through the dam. And they're like, oh my God, the dam's been blown. And I was like, eh, has it? Because it's not on the BBC, it's not on cnn, it's not on Reuters. It's. No, it's not in the news. And you know, I said like, this could be fake for all we know. And then somebody goes, oh no, look, look. That you can see the water flowing. Like, you can't do that with AI. And I'm like, well, I mean this is a few years ago. By today I think everybody will go, well, of course you can fake water flow with an AI. Like, anyway, as it turned out, I didn't believe it until the next morning. And then I got up and it was in all the news, everywhere, because journalists had checked it. And. And I'm like, yeah, okay, I'm proud of myself. In this case, I didn't jump to a conclusion. Turns out it was true. But I was waiting to check. And I think that's what a lot of us should do, particularly, you know, when we live in an era of social media. Pylons that can be just ridiculous and toxic. Like, just don't believe it. Just like, go slow down a bit.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Do you worry about people relying on things like Chat GPT and its attendant hallucinations instead of.

[Jimmy Wales]

I mean, somewhat. Again, I think people are aware, but I think they need to be aware that, that, you know, AI hallucinates a lot. And there was a lot of hype just before the launch of ChatGPT5, the most recent version, that, you know, like, it was going to be a lot better. It's a little better, you know, but it still gets things wrong. And certainly when we look at it from the Wikipedia point of view, it's like, if you want to write about something obscure and you ask ChatGPT about it, the chances of hallucination are much higher than if you wrote about something famous, like asking it, you know, write a Wikipedia entry about the Eiffel Tower. It's probably going to have some mistakes, but it's going to be pretty much passable. Ask it to write about somebody who was a contestant on Philippines version of American Idol in 2003. It's going to make stuff up. It's going to get all wrong. It has. I mean, one of the first things I'd be working on if I were them is to have. It's like, train it to go like, I don't know, beats me. Like, why are you asking me such an obscure question? I can make something up for you. You know, like, let's be a little more cautious. But we know that we can't really use it to write Wikipedia entries or to even help that much. Although there are areas where we are looking at. Okay, like, yeah, are there things it could do that would be useful to us? So this summer I was talking to a French Wikipedian, longtime community member, and she said, oh, yeah, I don't have time to edit much anymore, but my hobby is I find broken links. Like a dead link, it's gone 404, the website's moved, or something like that in French, Wikipedia on old pages, haven't edited a long time, and I see, what was that link supporting? And then I go and I search and I find a new source and I add that. I said, oh, but do you think, what if you had a tool? So finding a dead link, you don't need AI for that. The link is dead, right? So you find a dead link and then it could look at the article, see what the sentence before was, what was being supported by that. Then it could go and read a bunch of Sources. Find something that looks like it's it and make a suggestion to you. Like, it could find two or three sources from known good quality sources. And then all you gotta do is click on it and confirm that it's right. She's like, oh, wow, that would be like. That would speed up my work quite a bit. And I'm like, yeah, I think that will work. I think an AI could do that. Because it's just gotta do like a very simple task. And because it's only gonna make a suggestion if it gets it wrong, that's fine. Like, you're still gonna do it. It's just like what you were gonna do anyway, which is click on a bunch of sources and read them. It filters through and finds the most likely ones. And then you go and read those and it's like, great. So, like, I don't think we should be afraid of that kind of technology and be like, ah, it all sucks and it's terrible. It's like, no, let's use it appropriately. Unlike, say, Grokopedia, where they're trying to write the encyclopedia from scratch using. Yeah, that's not going to be great.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

What's your favorite article on Wikipedia?

[Jimmy Wales]

One of the ones that I've always found interesting and amusing is there's an article in Wikipedia called. Called Inherently Funny Words.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, my great. The great story about it is there was a moment in time when it almost got deleted because it had become kind of a dumping ground in the early days. Like, people just like go by and just add some word. They thought it sounded funny, no sources and all of that. And so somebody's like, oh, this is nonsense. Like, people are just writing random words and that's not. That's not. And. And so it. They nominated for deletion. Then we have a whole process and somebody. Wait, wait, wait, hold on a second. This is actually a legitimate concept in the theory of humor and a lot of famous comedians and humorists have talked about it and like, they went through and like rigorously sourced it all and it became quite a good article. Yeah. The only real casualty, this. There used to be a picture. It was a cow with horns, like, strapped to its head with a rope. And it was just like a funny picture. And then the caption was very dry, humorous. It just said, according to some, cow is an inherently funny word. I don't know why I think that's so funny, but I loved it. And it had to go because there was no source.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Could you remember any inherently Funny words. I'm trying to think of one right now that's appropriate for the show.

[Jimmy Wales]

And I can't badger.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Badger.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah. That is kind of didn't really work. You smiled a little, but.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Yeah, but like, I was thinking more along the lines of, like, vajazzled, you know, that's.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, yeah. No, I think inherently the part of the theory is like, words with a G, like yogurt, are funnier than other words without a G. The theory for comedians is like, you've written this great joke, and if the punchline is an inherently funny word, it just hits harder somehow.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

We'll have to link to that article in the show notes and people can find me some examples of funny words. I know we're out of time. You've helped create something that impacts humanity to a large, pretty decent degree. I mean, that's, you know, good flex. What advice do you have for people, maybe especially young people, to make some sort of similar impact in their life somehow?

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah, I mean, I. I think I have a few bits of advice and most of them are quite standard, so I'm just repeating cliches, but I actually believe them. So one is just get started, you know. So read up on the Lean Startup methodology. I'm not necessarily endorsing every aspect of that, but like, the idea is like, get to minimum viable product. And that doesn't necessarily mean you're making a product, whatever it is, but just like, test, like, early, like, get out there doing it and find out, is it even remotely gonna work? Is it even helpful? Are people interested at all? Because there's a big, you know, problem with. Wantrepreneurs is a term I've heard, like a wannabe entrepreneur who basically spends their life writing and rewriting long business plans. It's like, yeah, great, maybe you do need a business plan, maybe you don't. But if that's all you're doing, you're never gonna find out if it's gonna work or not. So you just kind of have to. To take a shot and go and, you know, the next five years. I read this when I was a kid and I was like. It was the most profound thing I had ever read in my life. And I still come back to it. Like, the next five years will go by no matter what you do. That's kind of interesting, right, to say, like, oh, okay, so you might as well do the thing because you're not going to stop the progress of time and you've only got so long. So just get started. And you know what if it doesn't work out, you can still be proud. Like, I tried something. And actually, this is one of the great strengths of Silicon Valley. In a lot of cultures, it's a lot harder for people because it's like, well, if I try something and it fails, I'm gonna have this black mark on me. I'm not gonna be able to. Whatever. I've got the shame. My family's gonna. Whereas here, people are like, oh, that was cool. Like, you tried that. It didn't work. Yeah, whatever. Most things don't work.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

That's true.

[Jimmy Wales]

At least you tried it, you know, like, that's better than, you know. You kept your job you hated in a bank and. And you wrote business plans for five years.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

This is one of the few places, I think, on earth where you could lose millions of dollars of someone else's money. And they go so well.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We gave it a shot.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Thanks for coming in.

[Jimmy Wales]

Great.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

And thank you for coming in.

[Jimmy Wales]

This has been really fun. We gave it a shot. Hopefully the podcast is entertaining.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

We'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes.

[Jimmy Wales]

Yeah.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Thank you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What happens when the only way to survive is to lie so well? You forget who you really are. FBI veteran Scott Payne went undercover with one of the most dangerous biker gangs in the country and almost didn't make it out.

[Scott Payne]

This is the way I was trained, and this is what I think. Anytime you are something that you're not, not pretend to be something that's opposite of you for a long period of time, especially in deep cover, generally one or two things is going to happen. You're either going to slip up and they're going to catch you, or you're going to become it. Because there's so many horror stories and undercovers, it sucks that the same mistakes are being made today that were being made in the 80s. You got a small department, you got somebody that's running the undercover, but that person is also the case agent who is going to get promoted if the case succeeds. I'm not saying people are going to do the wrong thing. It's just a bad foundation, I guess. People is kind of my business. Even as an investigator, at the end of the day, you need to be able to sit down with somebody and have a conversation with them and gather intelligence, get information, because if all else fails and computer shut down and phones us, that's great. It's all good stuff, but it's all human intelligence, and you just need to be able to talk to people. You got to be believable. And this is where a lot of people think about undercover. And when I'm out training and speaking, I mean, I'll ask, what do you think undercover is? Some people say acting. I go, okay, what else you think it is?

[Jimmy Wales]

Lying?

[Scott Payne]

Or is it pretending to be something you're not? The true definition of undercover work is you're forming relationships that you're most likely going to betray. That sucks if you look at it that way, but you need to be able to figure out a way you're going to do it and rationalize it in your mind so it doesn't have an adverse impact on you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Go inside. Basement strip searches. A brotherhood built on betrayal and the psychological damage that still lingers on. Episode 1120 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

Big thanks to Jimmy Wales, a guy who helped build something that has shaped how billions of people learn, argue, collaborate, and sometimes rage.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Edit one another.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And look whether you're a student being told, hey, Wikipedia's not a source or somebody whose bio page was once a war zone. Ha. Yes.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Been there, there.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wikipedia is one of the last standing examples that trust, openness and transparency can actually work at scale. If you want to rebuild trust in your organization, your community, or even just your household, take a page from Jimmy's playbook. Assume good faith, be radically transparent, and call balls and strikes even when they land right on your toes. You'd be amazed how fast this compounds into credibility. And for those of you wondering how to make an impact like Jimmy's, you don't have to found the next world encyclopedia. Just start by solving a real problem. Obsess over quality and collaborate. Like your idea depends on strangers showing up and doing the right thing. Because it probably will. Links to all things discussed will always be in the show. Notes, transcripts in the usual place. And if you enjoyed the episode, share it with somebody who still thinks anyone.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Can edit it means no one checks anything.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And remember, advertisers, deals, discount codes and ways to support the show are of course also on the [e-mail] deals please consider supporting those who support the show. Our newsletter wee bit wiser. It's specific, it's practical. It'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships. And it's only two minutes of reading per week, we promise.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Well, it depends on how slow you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Read, but if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. Test me. It's a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com news is where you can find it. Don't forget about six minute networking as well. Over at 6minutenetworking.com I'm ordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

You can also connect with me on.

[Jordan Harbinger]

LinkedIn and this show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Sidlowskis, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others or by drinking a ton of caffeine, which I have done today. If you can't tell the fee for this show is you share it with.

[Guest Host / Interviewer (possibly Jordan Harbinger or a co-host)]

Friends when you find something useful or interesting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In fact, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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