D
EAR JIMMY, you are born in
1966 and grow up in Huntsville,
Alabama, a small city best
known for its post-World War
II space program. The family home is so
close to NASA’s rocket-testing site that
sometimes your windows rattle.
By the late 1960s, Huntsville has
become a science and technology hub.
Although it’s in the Deep South, and
can feel very southern, it’s also full of
people who have come from elsewhere.
Sometimes it feels like your parents —
both from Alabama — are in the minority.
Believing the quality of the local
public-school system to be low, your
mother and grandmother open a small,
private primary and middle school,
which you attend. There are only three
other kids in your class, and you are each
allowed to pursue your own interests. It’s
an unusual but fantastic set-up.
During your teenage years, your
uncle opens a computer and technology
store, and you begin working there
after school, learning from him about
computers and computer programming,
which you find fascinating.
You are also interested in finance
and markets, so when you graduate high
school at age 16 you enrol at Auburn
University to study finance. You earn
a bachelor’s degree, then a masters at the
University of Alabama. You believe you
will end up as a finance professor,Matter
of Facts
As told toDAN F STAPLETONLESSONS EARNT
MAY 2017 VIRGIN AUSTRALIA 107A childhood defined by
discovery and learning
inspired Jimmy Wales to
co-found Wikipedia, one of
the world’s largest repositories
of knowledge. Here, he lays out
the story for his younger self.