Failure: Jimmy Wales Is Good At It

So in this post, I'm going to write a bit about a video lecture in Maastricht University by the genius Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia. His 50 minutes lecture was so inspiring yet amusing, gave me this new insight about how difficult his process was towards his goal.

I've once heard that a good leader ought to have some sense of humor--and not to mention, Jimmy Wales is good at it. The way he speaks (relaxed yet well-structured), his intonation, and his way to embrace the audience have no doubts. I found myself giggling and laughing for a couple of times while watching his speech. Such a 50 minutes well-spent.

You will hear these words that Jimmy Wales said several times throughout his speech:

"Failure, Jimmy Wales is good at it"

Well maybe it's just because the main topic of the lecture is 'Failure', but I personally think as a virtual spectator that he has a full right to say those words, knowing that he had passed so many difficult stages of life (called the failures) and they're really full of pain. Well let's say that he loves failing too much, yet now he ends up being a billionaire.

About the content of his speech, well I have to skip that part because you should watch the whole of it by yourself to know the details about his past failures and prove that he's beyond awesome. I attached the video at the bottom of this post. But don't worry I'll tell you these 9 inspiring lessons that I got from his speech:

1. Wikipedia's original and absolute vision --and I personally think it's really great. It is for every single person on the planet, given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.

2. Choose the right inspirational figure for a model. "When people think about entrepreneurship, the model they have in their mind is really a model for someone like Mark Zuckerberg, who basically didn't have too many failures in his life. He had one great idea and executed it incredibly well at a very young age and became incredibly successful. But actually that isn't a very normal path, and it isn't a very useful model for people starting out a career, or thinking about doing something innovative or entrepreneurial."

3. His countless experience of being an entrepreneur in the 'real' world. Mostly failures.

4. Have some positive hobbies. His hobby is computer programming. Well that's pretty....cool (for someone who has a Ph.D. in finance obviously).

5. Learn to see the unseen. To see the details in everything, find potentials in it and you'll find unique ideas.

6. Keep on believing in yourself that you will succeed someday, even though now you're falling.

7. Make the workers not workers, but more like volunteers. To create a more fun, productive, and innovative work environment. (Just a statement, don't worry the salaries still remain the same.)

8. Brilliant ideas come from crazy, dumb ideas, and from failures too.

9. Don't be afraid to fail, we're still young anyway. "Fail faster, iterate quickly."


The lessons Jimmy Wales has learnt:

"You have this one big dream or idea, and you're so emotionally invested in it that it's very hard for you to fail. You put too much of yourself into it and instead of what you should do is small experiments. Don't invest everything in it, don't arrange your entire life so that this one idea you have is the only possible way to succeed. Do small tests, and then fail faster and iterate very quickly.

Don't tell your ego to a particular business. For example, if I tied my ego to the original design of Nupedia (his failed project before Wikipedia), I would've said "It won't work" and I would've stopped there. But I didn't. I had to really re-thinking it and re-launched it in a completely different way. (and that's how Wikipedia was born)

The thing is, real entrepreneurs  fail and fail and fail and fail. The key is, enjoy yourself along the way, and in the end you will succeed."

Here's the video:

My wish is for us, to keep on believing in ourselves that winners never quit and quitters never win, just like Jimmy Wales who never quits.

"Dialing down is not an option for me"

-Jimmy Wales