Does Jimbo profit off Wikipedia funding? Options

Does Jimbo profit off Wikipedia? There was a discussion on Wikipedia somewhere and Jimbo said he didn't and that to check his finances and I did and didn't see anything. Sure he has a travel budget, but other than that I don't see any money coming in for him to pay for his house, etc.

But likely Jimbo is making money somehow or he'd be homeless. And to my knowledge, Wikia has never turned a profit so he can't be using that. So does Jimbo profit off Wikipedia's funding?

He must be getting benefits from the existence of Wikipedia - is he paid to give talks and interviews? That's not the same as pocketing donations, of course.

Didn't he used to make money from Bomis? Bomis still exists, so perhaps Jimbo still makes money from that.

Didn't he used to make money from Bomis? Bomis still exists, so perhaps Jimbo still makes money from that.

First post, greetings.

If I understand the history, Bomis paid for most of Wikipedia. Perhaps Wikipedia was a huge tax writeoff from his windfall pornography profits. So that would have been a form of profit, at least in that he didn't have to pay his investment in Wikipedia in taxes. He used to own the servers where Wikipedia was housed, though I'm not sure if that is still the case.

He has raised large sums of venture capital with Wikia.com, which is where he officially works now. Surely he retains not only a salary from Wikia, but a tidy sum of profits. Wikipedia is the motor for Wikia, so while Wikipedia remains poor and underfunded, he raises gobs of money for Wikia. Nice job.

DL

Didn't he used to make money from Bomis? Bomis still exists, so perhaps Jimbo still makes money from that.

First post, greetings.

If I understand the history, Bomis paid for most of Wikipedia. Perhaps Wikipedia was a huge tax writeoff from his windfall pornography profits. So that would have been a form of profit, at least in that he didn't have to pay his investment in Wikipedia in taxes. He used to own the servers where Wikipedia was housed, though I'm not sure if that is still the case.

He has raised large sums of venture capital with Wikia.com, which is where he officially works now. Surely he retains not only a salary from Wikia, but a tidy sum of profits. Wikipedia is the motor for Wikia, so while Wikipedia remains poor and underfunded, he raises gobs of money for Wikia. Nice job.

DL

Hi DL, Welcome!

Good info there. WP acts as a front to generate venture capital for Wikia sounds like a very good guess to me....

Welcome DL, even if you were I a WP admin I would tend to be kind to you with that moniker.

Of course JW had Bomis, I think I heard he also made a "killing" in options trading, but maybe that was his friends. JW hopes to profit from WP through its "good faith" , "branding" and reputation. Because WP is a non-profit, existing for the communities benefit (something about educational in nature) there are many pitfall in his path. Much would depend how aggressively WMF defends it intangible property from appropriation. Some benefit in JW personal reputation might be proper. But this should be indirect from his "doing good works" with the non-profit. WMF might be able to license some of its branding. That should be an "arms length transaction" and not a gift. That would be "self-dealing."

I think this has something to do with JW's insistence he is the sole flounder.(IMG:http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/567/soleflounder2tz4.jpg)

This post has been edited by GlassBeadGame:

Welcome DL, even if you were I a WP admin I would tend to be kind to you with that moniker.

Of course JW had Bomis, I think I heard he also made a "killing" in options trading, but maybe that was his friends. JW hopes to profit from WP through its "good faith" , "branding" and reputation. Because WP is a non-profit, existing for the communities benefit (something about educational in nature) there are many pitfall in his path. Much would depend how aggressively WMF defends it intangible property from appropriation. Some benefit in JW personal reputation might be proper. But this should be indirect from his "doing good works" with the non-profit. WMF might be able to license some of its branding. That should be an "arms length transaction" and not a gift. That would be "self-dealing."

I think this has something to do with JW's insistence he is the sole flounder.

I wonder how much Wales gets from Bomis anymore since he cut-out the premium memberships with serious porn in 2005. It can't be much.

What I mean to be clear about is that he benefited with Wikipedia as a self-benefiting tax-break. Which eventually became a money machine for a private company, that has no tested value.

Make money with porn ---> Build Wikipedia with money you would have paid in taxes ---> Build a pile of venture capital for a private firm with Wikipedia's reputation.

WMF isn't going to make problems for Wikia. What would make you think that it would? Wikia has taken nothing from Wikipedia. And WMF's management has a notably incestuous relationship to Wikia. Except for being a benefit of the no-follow policy, it is simply a wiki, which benefits from the fact that Wikipedia made wikis famous. And it is free, with a few ads.

For there to be a problem, the IRS would have to get rattled. Problems aren't going to come from WMF-ers most of whom probably would love to get hired by Wikia.

I wasn't an admin, GBG. But I was an active contributor. Not really anymore. Disillusioned.



This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

He must be getting benefits from the existence of Wikipedia is he paid to give talks and interviews? That's not the same as pocketing donations, of course.

He has a Wikia headquarters in Menlo Park, and a software operation of about 11 people in Posnan, Poland, and he's not paying them with chocolate chip cookies, presumably, so I am sure he can pay himself a salary. As well as probably trading his own investments on the side, for profit, made earlier from options&futures trading and online porn membership sales.

Rumor has it that Wikia got a lot of startup funding, aka venture capital. How much is anyone's guess. Anyone know where to look?

....

Ok, I found it. He got 4 million from a consortium of investors, including Mitch Kapor (open source foundation) and Pierre Omidyar (Ebay Founder). Then he got a 2nd wave of unspecified amount (probably large( from Amazon.

Details here:

BESSEMER VENTURE PARTNERS FUNDS JIMMY WALES’ STARTUP WIKIA - Bessemer leads $4 million round with prominent angels http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Press_releases/March_2006
(“prominent angels” include Investors, Mitchell Kapor, 56, is Chair of the Open Source Applications Foundation, Pierre and Pam Omidyar, founder of Ebay, and others)

The 2nd round of financing came from Amazon
http://venturebeat.com/2006/12/06/amazon-t...stake-in-wikia/
Amazon Invests in Wikia Series B Financing: Amazon's Value-Added ...

Comment from DL: All this implies mezannine financing being offered by Wikia. He’s putting his options and futures skills to work.


This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

I don't believe that Jimbo is making money directly off of Wikipedia.

He is, however, making money off of his Wikipedia PR spiel, directly and indirectly. When he makes a speech somewhere, he doesn't do so for free by any means. And he gets an indirect benefit because every media interview or speech is another opportunity to plug Wikia, which he does whenever and wherever he can.

Sure, Jimbo's got financial interests in mind.

He has raised large sums of venture capital with Wikia.com, which is where he officially works now. Surely he retains not only a salary from Wikia, but a tidy sum of profits. Wikipedia is the motor for Wikia, so while Wikipedia remains poor and underfunded, he raises gobs of money for Wikia. Nice job.

I asked Angela Beesley a few months ago a lot about it and she told me Wikia has never turned a profit with its advertising. If Wikia is getting money, it's by printing stock and/or taking loans.


As for porn profits, I've looked at plenty of internet porn and not once paid for it. There's tons of free places and many long-standing free porn websites. So I don't know why people would pay for something they can get free.

This post has been edited by LamontStormstar:

Ok, I'm not sure if the culture here is to ignore newbies, or if what I posted above was inadvertantly missed.

1. Per the press releases above, Wikia has garnered venture capital of at least 4 million dollars, plus and god knows how much Amazon in vested in them as "class B financing" (which means there is a class A,and perhaps investors partaking of class A). Jimbo, being a walking-Mr-Wikia, is cash-rich at the moment.

2. Jimbo (likely) retains a large salary which is dwarfed by the LARGER net value of the firm.... which is owns, in part.

3. Venture capital (the "loans") has notoriously loose strings. i.e. for right now, he's swimming in cash, and can worry about making profits later. And if it doesn't pan out, well, that's life in the big venture-capital city. If it happens to fail, Jimbo is scott free. Alternatively, it might not fail. There isn't a big hurry to make those profits. Silicon Valley venture capitalists will give him time to do that.

4. Making small-money profits with advertising isn't an pressing issue. What they hope to make money on is some kind of Wikia smart-search engine, "Wikiasepia" or something. (I forgot the real name), which means "rummage". The new search engine is supposed to be different from Google - and therefore not a competitor. It is supposed to be something to search books, and things, for more clear information, using "collective human thinking [which is purportedly] is more accurate or convenient than [an algorithm]".

I asked Angela Beesley a few months ago a lot about it and she told me Wikia has never turned a profit with its advertising. If Wikia is getting money, it's by printing stock and/or taking loans.

5. As for your point B, porn profits, from what I understand, there used to be a "premium membership", whereby users paid something (maybe 50-100 bucks?) to see the porn on Bomis, most of which was swiped off the web for free. i.e. 100% profit margin for his members.

As for porn profits, I've looked at plenty of internet porn and not once paid for it. There's tons of free places and many long-standing free porn websites. So I don't know why people would pay for something they can get free.

Do I need to say it? You are probably smarter than most of his premium members. Or better at porn searching. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) Or maybe it was a nice collection or presentation of porn. It sounded nicely organized.

Of course, by now, it is all gone. He sanitized it in 2005, i.e. cut-out the premium membership and serious porn presenatation, to make it look like a normal boring search engine. All about the time he started forming Wikia.

Talk about rewriting history.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

WMF isn't going to make problems for Wikia. What would make you think that it would? Wikia has taken nothing from Wikipedia. And WMF's management has a notably incestuous relationship to Wikia. Except for being a benefit of the no-follow policy, it is simply a wiki, which benefits from the fact that Wikipedia made wikis famous. And it is free, with a few ads.

The WMF will have problems with Wikia when Wikia eventually starts siphoning off popular-yet-"unencyclopedic" information from the main project. It's been happening with the Final Fantasy projects already, and Jimbo considers it a success. Not a good sign.

Ok, I'm not sure if the culture here is to ignore newbies, or if what I posted above was inadvertantly missed.

1. Per the press releases above, Wikia has garnered venture capital of at least 4 million dollars, plus and god knows how much Amazon in vested in them as "class B financing" (which means there is a class A,and perhaps investors partaking of class A). Jimbo, being a walking-Mr-Wikia, is cash-rich at the moment.

2. Jimbo (likely) retains a large salary which is dwarfed by the LARGER net value of the firm.... which is owns, in part.

3. Venture capital (the "loans") has notoriously loose strings. i.e. for right now, he's swimming in cash, and can worry about making profits later. And if it doesn't pan out, well, that's life in the big venture-capital city. If it happens to fail, Jimbo is scott free. Alternatively, it might not fail. There isn't a big hurry to make those profits. Silicon Valley venture capitalists will give him time to do that.

4. Making small-money profits with advertising isn't an pressing issue. What they hope to make money on is some kind of Wikia smart-search engine, "Wikiasepia" or something. (I forgot the real name), which means "rummage". The new search engine is supposed to be different from Google - and therefore not a competitor. It is supposed to be something to search books, and things, for more clear information, using "collective human thinking [which is purportedly] is more accurate or convenient than [an algorithm]".

I asked Angela Beesley a few months ago a lot about it and she told me Wikia has never turned a profit with its advertising. If Wikia is getting money, it's by printing stock and/or taking loans.

5. As for your point B, porn profits, from what I understand, there used to be a "premium membership", whereby users paid something (maybe 50-100 bucks?) to see the porn on Bomis, most of which was swiped off the web for free. i.e. 100% profit margin for his members.

As for porn profits, I've looked at plenty of internet porn and not once paid for it. There's tons of free places and many long-standing free porn websites. So I don't know why people would pay for something they can get free.

Do I need to say it? You are probably smarter than most of his premium members. Or better at porn searching. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) Or maybe it was a nice collection or presentation of porn. It sounded nicely organized.

Of course, by now, it is all gone. He sanitized it in 2005, i.e. cut-out the premium membership and serious porn presenatation, to make it look like a normal boring search engine. All about the time he started forming Wikia.

Talk about rewriting history.

You make interesting posts DL. I think the reason for our slow response is found here:

Then he got a 2nd wave of unspecified amount (probably large( from Amazon.

The difficulty derives from the open parenthesis "(" where a close parenthesis ")" would be expected. WR is known to be very intolerant of minor syntax errors. Somey recently misplaced a bracket "[" and everyone ignored the entire forum for a week. Don't let it get under your skin.

The 4 M seems a modest level of investment given the resource of some of the investors. I believe the various classes of stock indicate a right of the "A" class to get a return on investment prior to other classes getting dividends. This would be similar to a limited partnership, except even the principals would not have personal liability. Can't say for sure without a prospectus, which might not be available if not traded publicly. The information on classes might be included in the corporations Articles of Incorporation (publicly available information) or Bylaws (not public). Not much information on the second "round"of investment.

To illustrate where WPs "good faith" and branding come in, note the VentueBeat article indicates that Wikia has 30,000 registered users. I think en.wp has 2 million. Notice the name is "Wikia" not "Bomis Cities."

This is the best information we have had on Wikia financing so far. We should continue to keep an eye on this.

This post has been edited by GlassBeadGame:

I actually think that if he is doing it for free, or for a small fee that doesn't make him rich, then he is amazing. How much money do Yahoo and Google people make? Or Craigslist? Why should Wikipedia be free? They should put ads in there, or something. LiveJournal was free for a long time, but they introduced paid accounts, and it quickly made a lot of people very rich. Wikipedia can't have paid accounts (for obvious reasons) but they can have ads. Put an ad on every page, and then scraping looks the same as the pages themselves. How much money do others make from Wikipedia thanks to scraping? And how much do they give back?

I actually feel sorry for Jimbo, seriously, to be that popular and not making a mountain of money. I bet you that Britanica and the like are making bucketloads.

I actually think that if he is doing it for free, or for a small fee that doesn't make him rich, then he is amazing.

Before you take off your hat, recall that Jimbo is no socialist. And not a particularly nice person either.

How much money do Yahoo and Google people make? Or Craigslist? Why should Wikipedia be free?

First, it is a good idea. It was a combination of Sanger's idea, with Sanger-Wale's discovery that a real encyclopedi (Nupedia) would tank. Wikipedia was an accidental discovery/idea.

More importantly, it is a huge TAX BREAK. Because it is public domain educational material, the IRS considers donations to it (which first came from Jimbo himself) were tax-free, meaning he probably saved tons of money by "donating" to it. In other words, it has already made him money.

They should put ads in there, or something.

This was the basis of the Sanger-Wales "divorce". Wales refused to put ads in. Which considering he wants to keep this as a charity, isn't a bad idea.

If Wales really gave a damn about the encyclopedia, he probably would have put ads in. But he doesn't. He wants to siphon the money off into a profit-based enterprise, that he owns, and controls. And that is far less of a legal risk.

How much money do others make from Wikipedia thanks to scraping? And how much do they give back?

Jimbo is more concerned about "scraping" venture capital than information. He's been there and done that with Bomis.

I actually feel sorry for Jimbo, seriously, to be that popular and not making a mountain of money. I bet you that Britanica and the like are making bucketloads.

Jimbo as victim? (bangs head on desk). I don't feel sorry for Jimbo. He's laughing all the way to the bank, and got a free "get out of the IRS free" card, courtesy of Wikipedia, and 4 million cheerful happy volunteers.

I don't mind him making money, but the environment in there is just too depressing and unethical.

I actually think that if he is doing it for free, or for a small fee that doesn't make him rich, then he is amazing. How much money do Yahoo and Google people make? Or Craigslist? Why should Wikipedia be free? They should put ads in there, or something. LiveJournal was free for a long time, but they introduced paid accounts, and it quickly made a lot of people very rich. Wikipedia can't have paid accounts (for obvious reasons) but they can have ads. Put an ad on every page, and then scraping looks the same as the pages themselves. How much money do others make from Wikipedia thanks to scraping? And how much do they give back?

I actually feel sorry for Jimbo, seriously, to be that popular and not making a mountain of money. I bet you that Britanica and the like are making bucketloads.

Bliss,

If Wales could get as rich as the google-guys, he would. He's not as smart as them - they were computer science PhD genius guys. He's a finance guy (also a dropped PhD, but he's no genius - just a good promotor).

He's trying, in his own fashion, to get as-rich as the google guys.....while soaking up as much of the glamorous life as he can sink his teeth into.

I don't mind him making money off Wikipedia (indirectly) or Wikia (directly). I do mind that the environment of Wikipedia is so unethical and brutal, and the fact that it lacks moral authority is completely his fault. You almost can't blame Florence for anything. It would be like blaming a cow.

You make interesting posts DL. I think the reason for our slow response is found here:

The difficulty derives from the open parenthesis "(" where a close parenthesis ")" would be expected. WR is known to be very intolerant of minor syntax errors. Somey recently misplaced a bracket "[" and everyone ignored the entire forum for a week. Don't let it get under your skin.

Thanks! And in the future, I'll close my parens and not-forget the semicolons, to prevent you all from infinite-looping in anticipation.

The 4 M seems a modest level of investment given the resource of some of the investors.

Sure. But it's about 5-6 times the annual budget of the WMF, so it is all relative. And easy for ultra rich entrepreneurial types to get involved, with their "pocket money".

To illustrate where WPs "good faith" and branding come in, note the VentueBeat article indicates that Wikia has 30,000 registered users. I think en.wp has 2 million. Notice the name is "Wikia" not "Bomis Cities."

I don't get the joke here. Bomis Cities? I thought that Wikia was originally Wikicities, or something. But I think he's sweeping his his former Penis (oops, I mean) Bomis business under the rung.

This is the best information we have had on Wikia financing so far. We should continue to keep an eye on this.

Wow - I think that with a critique site, "where the money goes" is the first place you should look. But thanks for the compliment. Hope this was helpful.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

Yeah it was Wikicities, named presumably after Geocities.

Are people here opposed to Jimbo making money off Wikipedia? Or Wikia? Or at all?

Or are they opposed to Jimbo?

I'm suprised to find some kind of hidden admiration for him on this board.


Question:

why do I get this error, when I post on this board?

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Your cache administrator is nobody.



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Generated Sun, 15 Jul 2007 21:34:15 GMT by sq8.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE12)

Are you guys hosting this page on a Wikimedia server? And if so, can't the read who is doing what and where and why?

Just wondering. Can they corrolate my IP here with my IP logging in at Wikipedia? Because if they can, perhaps I should refrain from calling Jimbo an asshole, Florence a cow (and uglier than a dog's breakfast) and Fred Bauder a sorry excuse for a failed lawyer.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

Are people here opposed to Jimbo making money off Wikipedia? Or Wikia? Or at all?

Or are they opposed to Jimbo?

I'm suprised to find some kind of hidden admiration for him on this board.

I've noticed a surprising amount of sympathy for his situation here too, viz his exploiting Wikipedia financially. I myself have no problem at all with Wikia, even if it does owe its success (at least in getting the Big VC Bucks) to WP.

The fact that WP has managed to run this long without AdSense or banner ads probably has less to do with Jimbo himself than the generosity of various people who profit from Wikipedia's existence - scrapers mostly, but various other people too. Jeff Merkey, for example, is at least partially in the business of selling pre-loaded scraping machines, essentially. (Or at least that's my impression.)

People here and elsewhere are mostly opposed to Jimbo because he's a sub-par manager. He gets directly involved in things that he should delegate, and either delegates or abdicates WRT things he should be directly involved in. He's also arrogant, of course, and Wikipedia reflects that arrogance in a major way, IMO.

Anyway, as has been mentioned above, Jimbo's doing just fine on the speaker's fees and such, so nobody's worried about him starving anytime soon... But I also remember there was once a big to-do over whether or not "Foundation Employees" - specifically Angela Beesley - should be allowed to keep their own speaking fees, and Jimbo chimed in saying they actually should not, but that all of his speaking engagements naturally had "nothing to do" with the Foundation, so he should be allowed to keep all of his. I lost a LOT of respect for him after that, not that I had all that much to begin with!

Question:

why do I get this error, when I post on this board?

Was it just that one time? I actually edited the first version of that post because it said the same thing twice, and you must have tried to change it at the same time. Sorry about that...

Are you guys hosting this page on a Wikimedia server?

Absolutely not! Perish the thought!

...perhaps I should refrain from calling Jimbo an asshole, Florence a cow (and uglier than a dog's breakfast) and Fred Bauder a sorry excuse for a failed lawyer.

Well, maybe you should refrain from saying things like that anyway, if you know what I'm sayin'.

I've noticed a surprising amount of sympathy for his situation here too, viz his exploiting Wikipedia financially. I myself have no problem at all with Wikia, even if it does owe its success (at least in getting the Big VC Bucks) to WP.

I don't see a problem in anyone making money off of something they've worked to develop. I would feel more sympathy for Larry Sanger, who basically got screwed out of his own idea, by Jimbo, than for Jimbo, who gets all the glory, all the tax breaks, all the swanky invitations, and all the venture capital. I don't understand why anyone would feel sorry for him. He's playing the game and doing it pretty well.

The fact that WP has managed to run this long without AdSense or banner ads probably has less to do with Jimbo himself

I wonder if his aversion to ads was a philisophical thing, or related to the tax status of WP.

People here and elsewhere are mostly opposed to Jimbo because he's a sub-par manager. He gets directly involved in things that he should delegate, and either delegates or abdicates WRT things he should be directly involved in. He's also arrogant, of course, and Wikipedia reflects that arrogance in a major way, IMO.

I agree with you totally. His arrogance is the huge metaphoric problem for Wikipedia. If he could look at it impartially, and put in some safeguards, it would be incredible. But he's so pig-headed that he refuses to see any flaws or faults and as a result, tens of thousands of teenagers working for free adopt the same pig-headed attitude, and wind up wreakin havoc, where there could be a nice collaboration going on.

Anyway, as has been mentioned above, Jimbo's doing just fine on the speaker's fees and such, so nobody's worried about him starving anytime soon... But I also remember there was once a big to-do over whether or not "Foundation Employees" - specifically Angela Beesley - should be allowed to keep their own speaking fees, and Jimbo chimed in saying they actually should not, but that all of his speaking engagements naturally had "nothing to do" with the Foundation, so he should be allowed to keep all of his. I lost a LOT of respect for him after that, not that I had all that much to begin with!

Yes, I think that you forgot the word "hypocrite" with arrogant. His hypocrisy is impressive. I didn't know that about the speakers fees, but it is pretty typical. Everyone knows about his comments on COI, and then he edits his own page ... and his talk about truth and transparency, and his edits concern removing truthful references to his porno past. It is nauseating.

I don't "get" why Foundation employees should not keep their own fees. They work for free, so what is the big deal. They are supposed to give those fees back? Bah!

perhaps I should refrain from calling Jimbo an asshole, Florence a cow (and uglier than a dog's breakfast) and Fred Bauder a sorry excuse for a failed lawyer.

Well, maybe you should refrain from saying things like that anyway, if you know what I'm sayin'.

If venting here keeps me from getting cancer, then I think that is a good thing.