Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia) - In Trust We Trust

0:00You know, once you lose trust, that's it. You'll never get it back. That's just not true. You can rebuild trust. Jimmy Wales co-founded Wikipedia. I mean, maybe you are a billionaire. I'm not sure. Definitely not. I'm a geek. I work here in my basement. Do you think the feeling of trust in the world globally right now is worse than it was? Yeah, and it's a problem. We need to get back to a culture of trust. I'd love to hear a bit about the power of admitting that you're wrong.

0:27Be transparent, especially when you have something to hide. I think you see it in politics all the time and just person to person on the internet a lot of attacking with such harsh language that you can't even hear what the person's telling you. I actually call out Elon Musk. I'm like, wow, that is one hell of a thing to say about someone. One point that you made in the book is this idea of organisations taking sides on an issue. Are you just faking it because you think it's popular?

0:54That's worse than doing nothing at all. And also, like, whose mind has changed? It's like, oh, well, I used to be a homophobic asshole, but then Bud Light said I shouldn't be, so I've changed my mind. Yeah. Well, this is a very, very exciting and slightly different episode we've got today in the Academy because our guest lecturer, it's pretty wild what our guest lecturer has done. And as far as the internet goes, there aren't many... bigger names in the internet, I would say, than this one.

1:36Jimmy Wales co-founded Wikipedia, like actual Wikipedia. That is really wild when you think about it. It really is. That's like saying, hey, I came up with Hotmail. but it's still around incredible Jimmy it's such a true privilege to meet you and to have you on the show that's very kind thank you so much for carving out some time for us it's going to be a really really interesting chat really surrounding your book your new book about trust. And it's sort of a topic we haven't really delved into that much on the podcast, trust.

2:20So, yeah. So thanks so much for being here. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to read a bit of a bio about you, Jimmy, just so for those listening can understand a bit more about you. But before I do, I've got to say, I'm just so excited as well. My I told my mum who we're interviewing today and we've had the, we get the great pleasure to interview so many impressive people. And I told her who you were and what you did.

2:45And she, her immediately, she said, well, you need to hang up and go to sleep because he's very important and you need to be well rested in the morning to speak to this gentleman. So I'm well rested and very excited. I will say, though, before we start, I actually haven't finished Wikipedia yet. So just as far as spoilers go, it would be great if we could just not reveal. A little prep, you know. Yeah, true. You could have at least read the Wikipedia, right?

3:09We should say also that before you read the bio that Hugh is not here, which is why you can hear my voice. True. Sorry, Bridge. We didn't welcome you in. I mean, you've been on before, so I'm just sort of like, it's become normal now. Oh, that's very nice. Yes, but no, that's true. Hugh couldn't be here on the episode today, so Bridge is upgrading the show by stepping into his boots. Yes. And for anyone who doesn't know who I am, I normally produce The Imperfects.

3:34Yeah. Well, you'll still produce this one. Yep, I will. I'm in the chair. Okay, so who is Jimmy Wales? Let's see. It's fitting that Jimmy Wales' favourite book as a child was his encyclopedia. Growing up in Alabama, Jimmy went to college to study finance before giving in to his obsession with the internet and the possibilities it created for spreading of knowledge. In 2001, Jimmy co-founded Wikipedia, which today is the most read reference work in history, existing in over 340 languages.

4:04Let's just pause there for a second. The most read reference work in history. That is nuts. That is... Did you know that, Jimmy? I'm assuming you knew that. I don't think I've quite heard that. I mean, it's big. Yeah. And it's popular. That fact did come from Wikipedia. Yeah. Sorry. Not that you should know that, Jimmy. At the core of Jimmy's success is trusting that people are inherently good. Without this trust, Wikipedia's non-for-profit volunteer model would not have lasted.

4:35Jimmy's new book, The Seven Rules of Trust, why it is today's most essential superpower, explores why trust is so fundamental to a functioning society. Crucial to our relationships, trust allows us to cooperate with others, cultivate ideas and solve global problems. We use trust when we cross the road at traffic lights, when we are prescribed something from a medical professional or when we get into an elevator with a stranger. And in this episode, we'll go through each of the seven rules of trust outlined by Jimmy, the feeling of trust in the world right now, what makes someone trustworthy and how you can create more trust in your ideas, work and relationships.

5:09I mean, something that I find really interesting is that when I was a lot younger and Wikipedia first turned up on the internet, there was a feeling of, well, you can't trust that. And I think it's been a fascinating way that that has changed over 20 years. But I'd love to hear a bit about what it was like for you starting Wikipedia with, I'm sure you met that mindset quite a bit. Yeah, I mean, definitely. I mean, you know, in the early days of Wikipedia, I mean, on day one, I remember I got the software all set up and I just typed, hello world.

5:44Those were the first words of Wikipedia. And so, yeah, so in the early days, obviously, there wasn't much on Wikipedia. It was a lot of fun because you could be the first person to type, Paris is a city in France and hit save. hey, look at that, my encyclopedia article. It's amazing. And of course, it wasn't amazing. But what was fun is, you know, you come back a few days later and somebody had added a few sentences and they added population figures or whatever it might have been, you know, and it just grew and grew and grew.

6:14The prior project, Newpedia, which was a very top-down academic, you know, seven-stage review process to get anything published, which you might as well call the seven rules of distrust. because you had to fax in your CV, you had to prove you were qualified. At every step of the way, your text would be scrutinized and sent to the most prestigious academics to review or all the different steps. And what was interesting is one of the earliest articles that we published, it made it through the process.

6:43And in our little community, we were like, great fanfare. Like, here's, you know, great. We've got a new article. It's just been published. A couple of days later, we had to retract it because somebody found that it had plagiarism in it. And what actually did work was more people having a look, more scrutiny, more eyeballs on the issue. So the way to build trust with readers has always been transparency. Like every article of Wikipedia, you can click on the history and see all the past versions.

7:14Click on the talk page and see the whole discussion. How did it get to be this way? Also, like, oh, where do we get the information? Like one of the fundamentals of Wikipedia is you're not supposed to just come and write random stuff that's on your mind. You need a source. Like what's your source? And is it a quality source? And so we've got footnotes at the bottom so you can go and check and make sure that we've done it right. And so all those things tend to build people's trust in an obvious way.

7:38But then some of the things that I think are a little less obvious because they seem counterintuitive. You know, everybody's probably seen a Wikipedia entry that says at the top, the neutrality of this article has been disputed or the following section doesn't cite any sources. Well, you would think, wow, doesn't that cause people to mistrust Wikipedia? But actually, people like that. They're like, oh, yeah, great. And I always say, you know, sometimes I wish the New York Times would run a banner at the top of an article saying we had a big fight in the newsroom.

8:09Some people thought this wasn't quite ready to go out. We felt it was important enough to run. But a little warning, like we're not we're not completely sure here. But instead, you know, they have to. right in that voice of God way and tell it like it is in a very non-transparent way, which I think actually reduces trust. Like I think sometimes we'd like to know like, oh, we're reporting this, but, you know, like a few people are like, we should have gotten more sources, you know?

8:32Yeah, I think that's such an interesting example of businesses building trust. But I'm so interested to hear how individuals build trust. You open your book with an incredible story about your daughter, Kira, who was born very unwell. And you had to make a massive leap of trust. Yeah. This happened right at the end of the Newpedia era. Like Newpedia wasn't working. And I knew like something's got to give like this. This isn't going to work. But I was sort of not sure.

9:01Yeah. and just before Christmas time, one of my employees brought to me the idea of wiki. He showed me a couple of wikis online. He's like, oh, maybe we could use this. It'd be easier. I was like, oh, that's not very interesting. And then when Kira was born, she was very ill. She had meconium aspiration syndrome. And I was very lucky because the world leading specialist of this was there at the hospital. He worked at a nearby university and he had a relationship with the hospital.

9:33And he was in the midst of doing a clinical study on a new treatment that he had invented His invention was they stopped the baby's breathing and paralyzed the baby, and they put this new protein fluid he had invented into the lungs. They basically rinse out the baby's lungs. Whoa. Yeah. And so in the meantime, I had rushed home and checked online, like, meconium aspirate, what is this? You know? And basically, the information I got online was pretty bad.

10:06There were academic papers, which I didn't really understand. There was a few blog posts and just nothing was that good. And I was like, we really have to have an encyclopedia. Like, this is actually really important to have a clear thing. But we also had to trust the doctor. Right. And so one of the things that I thought was really interesting about him is I asked a question about one of the machines, which I found out later. He didn't tell me this.

10:30He invented the machine. And he then in response, I'm like, what are the numbers mean? Like, I don't like what's going on here. And he had empathy. Like, he got me. He was like, oh, okay, I know your personality type. And rather than being like a condescending doctor who would, you know, say, oh, that's a machine about this, he drew a graph. Like, he showed me, like, this is the tradeoffs of the oxygen. I don't remember any of it. And I was like, oh, right.

10:56Like, he, I trust this guy. Like, he's given me the information. He sees me. Yeah, we're going to say yes. Like, whatever he recommends, we're going to do it because I don't know what to do. And he's given me the right vibe. So, like, he's science-based. He's number-based. Anyway, so she got the experimental treatment, and within 24 hours, she was completely fine. Wow. It was an amazing thing, and it was fantastic. And she's great now. It's just – I had to – I was on the phone with her on, like, WhatsApp video, actually.

11:26And I was like, oh, sorry, sweetie, I've got to go. These people in Australia are all I'm doing, sorry. No, but so life is great. And like that was really great. And it was that moment of like when you're bewildered and you're frightened and you're not sure like, oh, I don't know what's going on. It was great to have someone who gave me what I needed at that moment so that I could trust. And I just think it's really important. I think the sentence you said in that a bit earlier was like, he said, he sees me.

11:56And I feel like that's such a key part of it. To feel sane is what we all ultimately want, really, is to be seen by people. No, it's definitely. And it runs through a lot of the rules, actually, that to be seen, like make it personal, civility, all of these things. will cause them to trust you, right? Because they can see like that authenticity of what you're doing and so forth. So yeah, we all know this. Like, this is the thing. Like, what's interesting is like, we don't need my book to remind us.

12:33I mean, maybe we need my book to remind us of this. No, we need your book. We need your book. All of this is like, you know, it's like, Yeah, we know, like, how should you treat people decently, right? And how do we get it wrong sometimes? And how can we forgive each other for getting all of these things are like, really, it's like, this is what life is about. Yeah. Do you think there's like the feeling of trust in the world globally right now is worse than it was?

12:59I mean, I think the evidence says, yes, that is a global phenomenon. So one of the things that I looked at was the Edelman Trust Barometer Survey. So this is a very wide survey done across many countries, asking a lot of questions about trust and impacting on trust. And what we've seen around the world, and it's not even in some degrees, but it's a broad trend of a lowering of trust in journalism and politics and business in each other to some extent.

13:28And yeah, and it's a problem. Trust is really important and we need to be we need to get back to a culture of trust. I mean, I think. And, you know, this being a mental health podcast, you know, the impact and the damage that can happen to people if they grow up, for example, in an atmosphere where they like as a child, if you can't trust the adults. Right. And they're pulling the rug out from gaslighting you, abusing you in various ways like it.

13:58causes problems for you that it takes a long time to heal from and so on and so forth. And so the same is true broadly in society. I mean, we look at politics as completely dysfunctional in many places around the world. Why is that? Well, in no small part, because the politicians can't trust each other. How do you get to a bipartisan compromise if you just think the other side is inhuman? You don't get anywhere. So- Yeah, I do. I do think it's a problem.

14:26And social media, I think, is, you know, getting to be quite toxic. Yeah, I think that's the understatement of the year. Interesting take. Well, we thought what we do today, because of your book and because it's all about trust and there's the seven rules of trust, we thought we would just, if it's okay with you, go through each rule and sort of discuss each one. And if we veer off topic, we veer off topic. But just to give it some sort of structure.

14:54That's how I am. Well, so rule number one is make it personal. And to quote you from your book, you say, trust is one and lost person to person. And to always think of trust in these personal terms, no matter what scale you're working at. Yeah, trust is always, it's in an individual human mind, like a person trusts another person or an institution or whatever. And if you're trying to win over someone, win over their trust, get them to trust you, you really need empathy.

15:31You need to be able to put yourself in their shoes. You need to be able to sort of think about things from their perspective. Like one of the things that happens a lot in the internet world where I work is people use, and by the way, this isn't a completely terrible thing, but people use a lot of A-B testing and statistics. So you do A-B testing to say, oh, what generates the higher... checkout rate in our cart and gets people checked out and so forth and gets you to the conclusion.

16:00Or some dark patterns like what stops people from unsubscribing from this service, right? And then like you do a bunch of A-B testing. It turns out you make it really fucking hard and it stops people from unsubscribing. Mm-hmm. And yet, by not making it personal, right, by people just using the pure statistics and going, right, great, this is 30% more effective, and not stopping to say, okay, hold on a second, but how is somebody going to feel when they're put through this process?

16:28Like, what does it do to the perception of their business in the long run? It destroys it. It's like, oh, you're horrible. You're horrible people, and why are you being horrible? Yeah. And I could love you. I could say to people like, oh, yeah, try this service. I used to use it. Didn't need it anymore, but I recommend it. Now it's like, no, don't ever do that because once you sign up, you're never going to. And, you know, it's very damaging. That's just one example.

16:49But, you know, trust, you know, in a business setting, you know, in a work setting, it very often does boil down to trying to really understand where that person is coming from. I feel like Wikipedia and Instagram, if I invited Wikipedia and Instagram to my party and I had a party at my house and they both came around. I'm loving this. It's like Instagram would be like, you know, they'd be so loud and like funny and have all these like quick stories.

17:19And it's sort of like, you know, sort of short attention span sort of person. Whereas Wikipedia would be having like little long conversations and they'd be sort of sitting back in the couch. I'm like, I want to go hang out with that person. It's almost like a likability thing as well. And I don't know if this ties into trust at all. Yeah. I mean, one of the pillars is authenticity. And, you know, if you've got that person who's kind of super flashy, funny, but you kind of get a feeling they're being a bit phony and they're putting on a facade, then you're kind of like, yeah, I'm not so sure.

17:53Like, yeah, it was fun for a little while, but actually not so sure. Interesting that you mentioned the pillars there. So you've got empathy and authenticity. I think in the book you display it like a triangle. Like there's a triangle of three things, which I think was empathy, authenticity, and logic. How do those three kind of connect to make someone trustworthy? Well, this is a framework from Frances Fry. So she's an academic. She's at Harvard.

18:22But she's also got a lot of practical experience in business. So she went into Uber when they were experiencing a real trust crisis, both internally and externally and so forth. to help them think about questions of trust. Like nobody trusted Uber. Inside the company, people didn't trust each other. Like different apartments were at war with each other. The drivers didn't trust the company and so on. And it was, you know, it was pretty bad. Like it was not clear how they were ever going to get from that mess to a state of being a sustainable, profitable business.

18:52And what she says is like, if you show her a situation in an organization where trust is broken down, she'll say it's always one of these three things or more than one. You know, at least one of these things is broken down. And, you know, I think that that makes a lot of sense. So, you know, it's like you have to have all the things as like authenticity in terms of being who you seem to be and being your authentic self, empathy, understanding the other person and logic in this context is like, yeah.

19:19Following through, like doing the things you're supposed to do, is what she means by logic. And that all makes sense to me. And actually, one of the things that was most positive and inspirational about what she had to say is, you know, people—it's a common trope. You'll hear people say— Once you lose trust, that's it. You'll never get it back. And she said, that's just not true. When you lose trust because you've done things the wrong way, you've made some mistakes, it's hard to get it back, but you can get it back.

19:52You can rebuild trust. And that's true, I think, in personal relationships and business relationships, all kinds of places. Businesses that lose trust... They lose money because, you know, they lose customers and so forth, but they can build it back. Like they can say, okay, like, right, we got this wrong. There's a great whole section story about Airbnb who really screwed up early on, had a real trust crisis and got really serious about trust. Now, you know, like massively successful company and yeah, great.

20:23I think this speaks really well, almost like a perfect segue into the second rule with, which is that it's in our nature. I feel like it's so kind of like the negativity bias that we have in our brains for negative experience overtaking all the positive things that have happened in a day. I think we're very good at finding examples of people being untrustworthy and miss all the moments in the day of where strangers... I think driving is probably the perfect example of how many people you trust to do the right thing on the road every day.

20:53Mm-hmm. It feels like we do have a natural position of wanting to connect and wanting to collaborate and wanting to trust each other. Yeah, definitely. I mean, one of the things to say here is like humans are pro-social. Like we like to do things with other people. We like to be, you know, productive together and so on. And not many of us are true loners. I mean, I like to work alone. I like a little peace and quiet, but I also like working with people and I like doing things with people.

21:23And, you know, what we do talk about in the book is that this could be a Positive or a negative. You know, we talk about a lynching in my hometown, Alabama, in Huntsville, Alabama, where I grew up. And this is before I was born and all that. But where people got themselves worked into a frenzy and decided somebody had done something bad and they basically, you know, acted as a group. In a very social way, not a positive social way, but but acted collaboratively to accomplish a goal that was actually a huge mistake and evil and horrible.

21:57And so that's the segue into rule three, but we won't quite get there yet. Yeah. But to say, you know, what the point of the chapter is, let's work with that human nature. Like if people do want to work together, then you work with that. You sort of say, okay, how do we inspire people in a group to do a good thing? How do we tap into that people want to, you know, be positive and social? And so, you know, you gave the example of driving, a perfect example of how we trust people.

22:27But there's also things, little things like... You know, if you go into a fast food restaurant, McDonald's or whatever, and then when you leave, it's expected that you're going to take your tray and put your papers in the trash and put the tray on top. And basically everybody does it. And you know what will happen to you if you don't do it? Nothing. Like you can just walk out like you make a big mess at McDonald's and walk out and you're not going to get fined.

22:51Probably nobody's going to yell at you. A couple of people might look at you funny, but that's it. So why do people do it? They do it because they do have empathy. They do think about other people. It's like, well, it'd be pretty terrible if I came into McDonald's and I wanted to sit down and the place is trash because everybody's just leaving their trash around. Maybe I'll just clean up after myself. Like, it's a reasonable thing to do. And there's a lot of examples like that, simple examples.

23:12And obviously, people aren't perfect and, you know, lots of things happen. But that pro-social nature, we want to work with that. We want to say, okay, like, this is how people are. They want to do the right thing. They want to follow social norms and be good in that sense. I think you mentioned this in the quite powerful example of the lynching from your hometown, but leading into that rule three, trust needs a clear, positive purpose. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what you mean by that?

23:42Yeah. So it's like, OK, yeah, people will work together, but OK, to really build trust, they need to be working together for a positive purpose and it needs to be inspirational and so forth. So for Wikipedia, it's one of the things that's made it easier for us in a lot of ways is like, you know, yeah. Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. You know, the idea that Wikipedia is a freely licensed, high quality, neutral encyclopedia is really easy to conceptualize.

24:16And it means we all know what we're here for. We know what we're here to produce. And a lot of things flow from that. So a lot of things like... You know, social behavior, like, oh, what do we do, you know, about somebody who's being rude and mean to other people? Well, we have a rule, no personal attacks. And that's very different from social media where personal attack is like one of the common things that people like to do on social media. But it's our purpose that defines that.

24:45It's to say, like, does attacking each other and having big, like, flame wars and insulting behavior, does that help build an encyclopedia? No, it does not. So let's not do that. Like, successful companies... generally do have a purpose, a pretty clear to state, you know, understanding purpose. And what does success look like? And what are we here for? And what are we doing? And, you know, if you're honestly at Twitter, it's like, what is the point of all this?

25:13Like, it's just a bunch of noise. And, you know, even the purpose of Twitter, which is sometimes said, I think even Elon has said this, is something like the global town square. I think if they took that purpose a little more seriously, you would say, if this is the town square, it's a pretty horrible town square. Like it's actually just crazy people screaming at each other. And it's really nasty. And a lot of people won't go there because it's so nasty.

25:40You know, when you think, Oh, Global Town Square, you think, oh, it's great. It's where we can come together and we can discuss ideas and everyone won't agree, but we'll have a constructive debate and we'll learn from each other. That, to me, is what a town square would be in that concept. Not just like, oh, yeah, yeah, you might get stabbed or mugged. Twitter seems like the town square that constantly has a protest happening at all times. On everything.

26:04At all times. On everything at all times. There's no downtime. Have you ever, in your career as co-founder of Wikipedia, like since Wikipedia started and particularly as it's become bigger, like now as it's sort of one of the biggest websites in the world in terms of traffic and recognizability and how people, you know, the amount people use it and trust it. I mean, maybe you are a billionaire. I'm not sure. But it sort of seems like strange. Definitely not.

26:32I'm a geek. I work here in my basement. So yeah, like a proper geek. It's very abnormal these days for someone to not be a billionaire if you have one of these enormous websites that everyone uses. Have there been moments throughout the time, like opportunities that have come your way that you have turned down or said no to in some way because you were worried it could affect the way people trust you or the website? I mean, yeah, probably, but it doesn't present itself in quite that way.

27:08I mean, there's certainly – so, for example, somebody tweeted to Elon because he was complaining about Wikipedia and said, you should buy Wikipedia, and I just tweeted, not for sale. Mm-hmm. But that wasn't like turning down an actual offer. Like, Wikipedia is a charity. Like, it doesn't make any sense, you know? So, but there are definitely things that, like, decisions that we have made at the Wikimedia Foundation, which is the charity that owns Wikipedia, that I do think are not about money necessarily, but, like, things like...

27:43we have never compromised on censorship. So we don't change anything in Wikipedia at the behest or request of any government anywhere in the world. And one of the reasons that's really important is trust, that people know how we're going to react. They know what we're going to do. So when we were blocked in Turkey for three years, we fought in the courts. We won in the Supreme Court in Turkey. I'm quite proud of that. Landmark decision, very important.

28:11and now we're available in Turkey. And there was a clear offer on the table the whole time, just take down these two articles, do the things, and you'll get access back. And they thought we would do that. I think they were genuinely surprised because every other internet company, including Mr. ProFreeSpeechElon, take down tweets if the government complains about it. And I was like, you know what? If we ever did give in once anywhere in the world, the number of other governments who would come at us would be huge.

28:44Like, because they would be like, oh, well, like Wikipedia will take stuff down. You just have to threaten them a little bit and they'll cave immediately. No, it's like, oh, you can threaten Wikipedia all you want. They're not going to take anything down. So then you're going to have to actually block Wikipedia. Yeah. That's kind of a big deal because people use Wikipedia and they like it, you know. And so that's an example where the purpose comes into play.

29:07Like our purpose, a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet is really important. The neutrality. And it does lead to decisions that, you know. have consequences, you know, like we're not available right now in China. And, you know, there's a standing offer there. Like all we have to do to be available in China is allow a Chinese university to manage the content and make sure it's all legal in China. And it's like, yeah, that's never going to happen.

29:37So thank you. But no, thank you. And, you know, I think that is one of the areas where I do think being a nonprofit matters a lot. Yeah. Because again, our business model is aligned with our values. So business model, I mean, it's a charity, but it's still a business model. Because if we thought, oh, we're giving up 30% of our revenue and profit because we can't operate in China, you might be tempted. You might go, hmm, actually, that's kind of a tough decision.

30:05In our case, it's made a lot easier because we know... If we caved into China, a lot of our donors would abandon us. They would be like, ah, one of the reasons I donated to Wikipedia is they fight for the truth. They fight for freedom of expression. You know, like, they're the good guys of the internet. And suddenly they're cooperating with censorship of authoritarian governments. Like, I don't like them anymore. Like, they're horrible people and it's bad.

30:30And we would lose trust. And so that, you know, there is that. Yeah. I think this speaks really... We're jumping ahead a little bit, but I think we're there. So it speaks really interestingly to the sixth rule, which is independence. And it's sort of what you've been talking about here. But one point that you made in the book that I think is... Maybe not inherently obvious, or it certainly wasn't to me, is this idea of organisations taking sides on an issue.

30:56And how that can, because it seems like that would be inherently a good idea. Or it seems like it could be a good idea, but that there's a hidden cost there. Yeah. So I think that this one's really important. And I think it's something that a lot of organizations should refrain from getting involved in other people's fights. If it's not really relevant to you and your company, you should probably stay out of it in most cases. Now, there are exceptions.

31:24So one exception would be if you look at Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Ben & Jerry's has always built their brand on a certain socially conscious ethos, and that's part of what their customers care about, and it's part of what's made them successful. And they would lose a lot with their customers if they gave that a part. At the same time, that's who they are. That's their brand. That is the product that they're selling. When you're buying Ben & Jerry's, you're not just buying some ice cream.

31:55It's quite nice ice cream, by the way. You're also buying support for a certain set of things you believe in. And that's part of that ethos. Others like Bud Light. I mean, Bud Light doesn't have an ethos. Bud Light's kind of like mediocre beer, right? And it's cheap and it's fine. It's not terrible, but whatever. It's Bud Light. And so for Bud Light to take sides in some broader discussion, it generally ends badly. It generally isn't. And also, like, whose mind has changed?

32:25It's like, oh, well, I used to be a homophobic asshole, but then Bud Light said I shouldn't be. So I've changed my mind. Like, nobody gives a shit what Bud Light thinks about anything, right? It's just not part of who they are. It's not a fight they should have. Like, it's, you know, they should do the right things in terms of how they treat their customers, their employees, all that. But to publicly weigh into that fight, that's a huge decision.

32:48And in many cases, it's just not really the right idea. And it is a little surprising. And actually, the context of that that sort of brought me to that sort of wanting to add that was this dust up about the Washington Post. decided not to endorse a political candidate. And this is the first time in a long time. And it was very controversial. And I think it was controversial mainly because of the timing. The timing was terrible, and I would criticize the timing.

33:20It was just before the election. And a lot of people perceived it as somehow doing a favor for Donald Trump or that sort of supporting Donald Trump, whatever it might be. And I don't think that's what it was, but I don't know, like, behind the scenes what happened there. But the idea is, like, there's research showing that when a company takes sides or when, like, a newspaper does an endorsement, it not only reduces trust by people who disagree with the endorsement, it reduces trust among people who agree with the endorsement.

33:51Yeah. Because suddenly you're like, oh, is all the news being selectively given to me to support their political view, their candidate? Yeah. And I thought that was really interesting. It is. That that's what turns up. What about when, like, in Australia here we've got the Australian Football League, the AFL, and they often come out with, like, you know, they'll take a stand on a particular issue. Like, they've got a Pride round now. They'll come out and say that they wanted to vote yes for the voice, which was something that happened here in Australia for recognising Indigenous voice to Parliament.

34:28And that was very controversial when the AFL came out and said that they were taking a side on it. But then I feel like, like I really like it when they do it because it kind of probably aligns more to my values. And I think there's an argument for a company with, you know, a big platform who kind of highlights hero figures in our society through the players to lead by example. But... You're kind of saying through that research that that actually could probably end up damaging trust for that organisation for the AFL.

34:59Yeah, it could backfire. And sometimes it's worth taking that risk that it might backfire. I think it depends on the context. I mean, I would say, you know, one of the examples, since you're talking about Australian football, I'm allowed to talk about Alabama, where I grew up. So University of Alabama football, American college football, they're the greatest team. I'm not neutral in any way. It's what I grew up with. And by the way, they've won more national champions than anybody and so on.

35:31But their coach, Nick Saban. And so Alabama, of course, is famously quite conservative. A long history of problematic racism and this and that. The football players are largely African-Americans, not all, but it's a big component. And Coach Saban, the most legendary coach ever, he led his team. They went on a march, and they marched for Black Lives Matter. And that was controversial. He was sticking his neck out because in Alabama, Black Lives Matter might be quite controversial.

36:09But in his case, as the winningness football coach and with a team who had really meant a lot to them, And to fans like me, it meant a huge amount to me. I'm like, wow, that's amazing. I know what he had to go through. It was worth it for him. And in that case, you can understand why. He needed it for practical reasons. Like it was inspirational for his team and he's considered a great leader. it was morally the right thing to do in terms of what they were saying and protesting.

36:39It probably did cost them a little bit with some fans, but maybe very problematic fans. So these things, it's like, no company should ever take a stand on anything ever. No, no, no, that's too simplistic. It's really more like, don't as a knee jerk, make an announcement about everything because you're gonna get it wrong. You're gonna piss people off. It's just not necessary. And it also diminishes the value of that moment when you do take a stand.

37:02You know, when you do say, actually, this is really important. I think the NFL blew this enormously. You know, when a player was kneeling and other players wanted to kneel and then they went crazy about it because it wasn't popular with parts of the public. I think they should have, you know, in that case, found some way to say, like, look, we support our players. Like, it's meaningful. Not every player is going to do it. It's a respectful gesture or whatever.

37:28Instead, they kind of just flubbed it and it just didn't feel right. It felt like bad. Yeah, I think when it's done poorly, it doesn't reflect the trust triangle very well. They're not acting logically, empathetically, and with authenticity to their purpose. By the way, that authenticity piece is also another thing. There is the term greenwashing for a reason. which is oftentimes when companies are like, ooh, look at our great environmental initiative.

37:56And you're like, well, you're an oil company. Like, not so sure that we think this is trustworthy, right? Is it really authentic? Like, it might be. It might be to go like, yeah, we understand. Like, oil's a big problem, but we are doing what we can. Okay, like, okay, that's fine. But pretending like we're the most green company in the world, probably not, so... Yeah. So that authenticity piece, like, are you just faking it because you think it's popular?

38:18That's worse than doing nothing at all. So jumping back a bit, because we've skipped forward to rule six, but rule four is want trust, give trust. If you want to get trust, you need to give it. And I think like a very, very simple example for us in the podcast is we ask people to come on and often tell very vulnerable stories about their personal life. And sometimes when you're reaching out to someone who's got no idea about the podcast at all, they might take that as, oh, look, you want to get a headline or you want me to open up in this way.

38:49And we need to work very hard to kind of build trust with them before they come on. to enable them to be able to do that and to feel comfortable enough. And one, we do lots of things in the podcast, but one of the ways is we say, like, you can come on here and have a conversation with us and we will send you all of the audio and the video once it's edited. And if you don't like how it sounds or what you said, we will take it out. We'll take it out.

39:13And you've got full control over it before it goes out into the world. And we've found by doing that, which is quite unusual in the world of media and podcasting to give that control over to a guest. But we've found by doing that almost nobody comes back and wants anything changed. That's a gorgeous, gorgeous example, right? Because you're trusting the guest to not then go back home and say, you know what, scrap the whole thing. So now you've wasted a whole, like all the prep, the time you spent, you know, the editing and everything.

39:41And they're just going to go, yeah, never mind. I don't like any of it. And so you're trusting them and they feel that, they experience that. Oh, okay. Like you're trusting me to make this final decision. That's great. So I can feel a little more open, a little more good about the whole process and the whole thing. And they can probably start to open up without immediately self-censoring. Like, oh, like, like if I say that, I don't want to go down that path because it might get awkward.

40:08And so I won't even start there. They'd be like, oh, I can start down the awkward path and see how it goes. I love it. That's a great example. I think you alluded to part of Rule 7 there, which is transparency, which I think on its surface is obvious what that means. But I... There's a point that's made that I think is what I was told at school and as a child and what I tell my kids to do. But then I see on a grand scale so many people not doing this, which is admitting when you're wrong and apologizing.

40:37And it seems like the current zeitgeist and the current moment, there are so many examples of like never admit you're wrong. Just keep going. Get more brash. And that's the way to win. Yeah. Um, and I guess maybe that's the point is that it's framed on a winning, winning, but I'd love to hear a bit about the power of admitting that you're wrong. Yeah, I mean, the kind of heading of the chapter on transparency is be transparent, especially when you have something to hide.

41:08And I think that's actually really important. And, you know, like we can address this in a lot of different ways. But like one of the easiest ways to really make it clear how I'm thinking about this is, In a business-to-business context, let's say you're a business and you've got a client or another business and you're supposed to deliver on a contract. And it's getting close to the end and you realize, like, we're not going to make it. Like, we don't have time to complete the job as promised.

41:37It's a problem. And I just think you're much better off in two ways. One, if you've built a trusting relationship with that client over time, they're far more likely to believe that the problem you face, that you didn't sort of BS your way and overpromise, that actually something legitimately was a stumbling block and it's caused a delay. And they're going to go, OK, yeah, like these things happen. Right. I can I can deal with that. But also by going to them and saying, yeah, actually, we've got a problem.

42:08We could deliver on time, but the work isn't going to be up to our standards. And we actually think you'd be better off waiting. That kind of approach is much better than trying to hide it and try to not be transparent and not explain what's happened. And I think that's true in a lot of situations. And also, it's something that in a lot of organizations, we should... help ourselves and in our personal life, we should train ourselves to be good about that.

42:34Like if somebody is being transparent with us in a way that's hard for them, like reward that. Like say, oh, actually, you know, great. So like, you know, if a teenager comes to you and confesses something they did wrong, which isn't too terrible, the teenagers are always doing something they probably shouldn't do. Yeah. You can fly off the handle and yell at them and they're going to be like, well, I've learned a lesson here. Not never do this again.

42:59Never tell dad because he goes insane. Instead, you go like, oh, actually, yeah, that's a shame. Like you shouldn't have done that. But let's figure out what do we do next. Right. Great. Like then you're building trust on both sides. Like the child is building trust because they're like, OK, like I screwed this up. I need to fess up. And I feel safe doing that because I know like dad's going to like react well to it and he's going to be disappointed.

43:26But like it's going to be better for me in that case. And so it's not easy in lots of cases, but I do think it's really, really important. I think what's coming to mind a lot is COVID being a pretty bad time globally probably for trust. It felt like people kind of lost trust in institutions and governments and health officials because there was so much information and it was hard to know where to look. It was uncharted territory. It was all new. No one had any real answers.

43:59Yeah, yeah. But one, I think there was one thing you mentioned in the book about masks that really spoke to me around this example of not being transparent about the issue. I think it was in New York. I think it's a US example, but I mean, basically the example is, and I think it happened in many places around the world, like the initial advice that we were all given is don't rush out and buy masks, it won't do any good. And then a few weeks later, it's like, no, you have to wear a mask everywhere, it's mandatory.

44:30And that really lost a lot of people's trust. They're like, hold on a minute. You just said it wasn't important. Now it's mandatory. Like, what's going on here? And the reason that they said, at least in some cases, the reason that they said masks aren't effective is because they were afraid people would go crazy and go out. They didn't trust the public. And if they had trusted the public to say, look, masks will help with transmission, but please be sparing.

44:56We really need them in the hospitals. That's where there's going to be a shortage. It'll do the most good in hospitals. They didn't trust us enough to say that. So they instead basically gave us false information saying, oh, they don't work, so don't bother. And then later it's like, well, no, they do work. And so people didn't know what to think. And unfortunately it became a very politicized issue. We should have – I mean the government should have been telling us the toilet paper doesn't work for the same reason.

45:18Yeah, absolutely. But we would have called bullshit on that, quite literally It's such an interesting point also on transparency and the giving and wanting trust and giving trust I also think, I imagine a different scenario in which maybe they thought masks don't work And then two weeks later came out and said, we're sorry, we got that wrong They do actually work, please start using them Would have been a totally different experience, I think Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, all of these things, actually.

45:44Or even if they come out and said, yeah, you know what? Actually, we're really sorry, but we just didn't want to cause a panic. But actually, you should have masks. And we shouldn't have said that. We're sorry. Okay, great. That would be helpful. It would be shocking. Maybe. Yeah. It would be shocking. All right, I think we've got one more rule to do because Josh is determined to not go in order. Yeah, sorry about that. We've told everyone that we're going to do the seven rules.

46:10People would have assumed they would be in order and we've lost trust by doing them out of order. So apologies for that. So rule five is be civil. And I think you mentioned before the danger of kind of attacking people's character versus sort of attacking the argument or the view that they might have and the content of it. I can think of like one time in the podcast, which is probably many more than one, but we had done an episode with a woman who talked about it having quite a severe eating disorder and, And through that conversation, she had mentioned the weight that she got down to when it was at the worst part of her disordered eating.

46:49Yeah, disease. And we published it. And we're very careful with what we publish. We have a psychologist kind of look over things for us. We have... conversations in here, but we made a mistake putting that out there. And we didn't know at the time that that can be quite problematic when you, when you publish exact numbers, because people can kind of get inspired by that and kind of think, oh, that's a target to get to when they're in a really, really low place.

47:13And, And the first couple of emails I think that Josh and I received about it were really aggressive. They were like, they were really nasty. And they basically just told us how terrible the podcast was on a lot of different fronts and then mentioned that this is the worst thing that we could have possibly done. And we both got really defensive about it because we didn't know how, we didn't know that that was sort of a bad thing to do or that it was against sort of the standard of what you should be broadcasting.

47:41And then we got a third email that came in from a really reasonable person that sort of said, I love the show. Let's call them a civil person. Yeah. And they said, I love the show. I love what you do. But just so you know, keeping that figure in is problematic because of X, Y, Z. And it made it, it was logical. It was reasonable. They appealed to our empathy. And we both were like, oh my God. And we changed it. We edited it and we republished the episode.

48:08Yeah. I think that there's such a danger, and I think you see it in politics all the time, and just person to person on the internet a lot, of attacking with such harsh language that you can't even hear what the person's telling you. 100%. Yeah. I'll give my UK-centric example, but it's famous enough. Everybody knows about Brexit. And, you know, all the political parties were opposed to Brexit, the UK leaving Europe. But it got voted for. Anyway, my family does this.

48:40I don't know if you can tell. The lights just went off. When they go to bed, they turn off the light. Sorry about that. We'll just, we'll make it through. I'll change my screens to be more white. But you can still see me, yeah? Well done. There's one switch that turns the hallway light off, but it also controls my office. So it's sort of like, oh, in the middle of a podcast. Anyway, it's quite amusing. Where was that? Brexit. I think a part of what happened there, the rhetoric around Brexit was that the people who were in favor of Brexit were racists.

49:16And there was a lot of discussion in the media about this question. And I just thought and still think, like, that's no way to convince anybody. Like, calling somebody a racist, you don't generally tend to change their mind. You know, either they are racist and happy about it, in which case they're like, yeah, of course. Or more likely, they don't believe they're racist or they're not racist and actually have a more nuanced and interesting view. They've got real problems with the way society is going that have to do with...

49:45by the way, the central nature of London to the UK economy and that a lot of the places that aren't London aren't doing well and so on and so forth. All of those things were actual real factors, but we couldn't have a conversation with people. There was no way to persuade them and convince them because they felt like, ah, they just think we're racist, so whatever. And so that like lack of civility, that lack of empathy, that lack of, you know, treating people with respect costs the country quite a lot as we, you know, have been through Brexit and it's damaged the economy quite a bit and damaged the very people who voted for it quite a bit.

50:21And so that's, you know, that's one example of sort of writ large of how. that kind of uncivil discourse, right, isn't actually constructive and helpful in society. And, of course, we see it all the time. I mean, I go on Twitter, X, far less than I used to because it's like, this isn't fun. Like, you know, just going and no matter what you post, somebody's going to yell at you and it's like – Right. They're not changing my mind. In fact, you're causing me to feel a little bit more like I should dig in on whatever it is, which is probably nothing, all that controversial.

50:58So yeah, yeah, it's a really important rule. I think it's sort of painting people as the enemy. And I think there's no more poignant or tragic example of this than that story. And it's a UK example as well, but the story of Joe Cox. Yeah, no, I mean, this is one of the end results of this kind of hostile discourse that we've got so common. You know, we've had in the UK, we've had two members of parliament assassinated. So Joe Cox, a friend of mine, and David Amos, a conservative MP.

51:31So one Labour, one conservative. And then in the US, they just had this horrible Charlie Kirk incident. And Charlie Kirk, I mean, I would have many, many disagreements with Charlie Kirk politically. But I think one of the things that is really interesting, he was quite famous for, he would go out and have debates. That's great. Like, that's amazing. I would disagree with him on lots of things and all of that. But I actually call out Elon Musk in the book for calling a UK member of parliament, pure evil.

52:00I'm like, wow, pure evil. Like that is one hell of a thing to say about someone. Because if you say this person is deeply mistaken on some important issues, great, we can have a conversation. But if you say pure evil, what do you do with pure evil? There's nothing you can do with pure evil. You can't talk to pure evil. You have to fight it. You have to turn violent. Because if pure evil is coming to eat your baby, like what else are you going to do?

52:24Also, pure evil is kind of like abstract and inhuman. It's kind of like... Yeah, it's really odd and it's just not healthy discourse. And so we can think about those big global issues and politics and the horribleness of social media. But also just like civility in work and in life and everything. It just gets things done in a very reasonable way. And I come from the community of tech geeks. And a lot of us are a little bit socially awkward. I think we have to admit that, right?

52:55And one of the things that I have heard rarely, but you do hear it sometimes, is like, politeness is just a form of dishonesty. Like, you should be honest with people. Polite, why are you covering up? Why don't you just say the truth? It's like, no, actually, you're missing a huge amount of subtlety, right? You can be very honest with someone and still be civil and polite. You don't have to go for the dagger and you can just say, I think you're really wrong about this, right?

53:19Not, I think you're a moron. Keep that to yourself. It's not actually helpful in any way. And what a lot of us have found is that, of course, when you get some sort of troll comment or some sort of like horrible comment... when you respond to it in a civil way and you give that person the time of day and say like, oh, actually, thank you so much for that, I feel like what often happens is when that person receives a reply from a real human being and...

53:51And they understand that, oh, that I've actually offended a real person. I've actually hurt a real person. I think that's when it can kind of sometimes break that cycle. And I'm sure like, I'm sure in a lot of the cases, they would feel really, really horrible about it because it all becomes real. I think that's exactly it. And I think a very few people, they just get a kick out of causing people pain. I think that's incredibly rare, but that kind of troll does exist, and all you can do is block them.

54:20I'll tell this story. Once on Twitter, when it was still Twitter, so this is pre-Elon, there was this random troll account that was... said I was a pedophile and was giving very specific claims about something that happened in 1997, absolutely made up out of thin air. Like, it was really outrageous. And so I reported it. I'm like, what the hell is this? This person is just trying to get a rise out of me. I reported it. I was really happy 10 minutes later because I got this message from Twitter saying, oh, great, we got your report.

54:52We're going to look into it. I'm like, great, they're going to sort it out. It's fine. And then, you know, two hours later, I get back a message. Oh, we didn't see anything here. Like, there's nothing. And I'm like, hold on. So I dug through the terms of use. And I'm like, this is abuse. And like, here's what it says in the terms of use. And I'm like, this is completely ridiculous. So I emailed Jack Dorsey. I'm like, Jack, I mean, look at this. This is ridiculous.

55:14And he said to me, I mean, quite right. He's like, oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, don't worry. We will sort this out. Sorry, made a mistake, really wrong. And I'm like, yeah, not really my point, Jack. Like, I know you. I'm Jimmy Wales. I can email Jack Dorsey. Most people can't. This is not available to most people. Like, that's the point is, what about that teenager in a high school and somebody spreading absolutely vicious falsehoods about them? Where do they turn?

55:42If they report it to Twitter, do you take it down? Well, if you don't, they've got nowhere to turn to. They don't know what to do. And it's incredibly victimizing. It's bullying. It's horrible. And, you know, I think social media companies need to be really, really serious about this stuff. And, you know, I think they're not being serious enough about it. And, you know, even like you experience quite a lot when you're in the public eye. But I'm like, whatever, like say mean stuff about me.

56:10I invented Wikipedia. I'm fine. Like, you know, go find yourself. It's fine. Yeah. But not everybody has that sort of situation. That's a T-shirt that I want to see you wearing. I invented Wikipedia. Go fuck yourself. But, you know, it's like, why are you being mean to me? Like, I'm a perfectly nice person. And, like, I'm not going to sort of crawl in a hole because you're being mean to me. I'm just like, whatever. Like, this is silly. But not everybody has that privilege of saying, like, actually, you know, like, it's fine.

56:40Like, whatever. You're being a jerk. And I don't care. Because a lot of people really don't have that. You know, they don't know what to do. And I was a very shy and awkward teenager who experienced some bullying. And, you know, I'm like, yeah, it really sucks. Like somebody is being mean to you and you have no idea what to do about it. Well, even when you said before that somebody made these claims about you, I immediately get worried, even though I know that it's not true, and I knew you were obviously about to say that it's not true, I still feel like, oh, shit, this is scary.

57:14That is the reaction that a troll wants to get. And then I do think, I actually do agree with you, like in many cases, if people can be presented with the humanity of what they're doing... Not all cases, but in many cases, they will go like, oh, actually. But, you know, I do think like one of the problems with the way – and now I'm just in a general rant, sorry. But one of the problems of the incivility is a lot of people just check out of an uncivil environment.

57:43And so like if you want to be the town square, the global town hall – Um, if you've created an environment where lots of people are just like, yep, nope, I'm not going there. It's toxic. It's horrible. You're not being, you're not living up to that. You're not, you're not providing a space where interesting, diverse opinions can be debated and discussed and, you know, sort of growth happen and all of that. So yeah, civility, very important. Rule number five.

58:11This has been such an incredible conversation just because we did go out of order a couple of times. And I'll recap the seven. And Josh will be punished for that afterwards. I'll recap the seven rules of trust. We're dropping civility. Civility is out. The minute somebody does rule six before rule five, it's just not okay. Not acceptable. But I think overall, like, this deeper understanding of trust that you've provided is quite incredible. But I think what's sort of really pertinent in it is that trust is really fragile and we can dismantle it so easily.

58:49But I think in that we can also cultivate it, which is a really hopeful feeling to leave people with. but if anyone's wondering what the seven rules were, they were make it personal. It's in our nature to be collaborative. Trust needs a clear, positive purpose. To get trust, you have to give trust. Be civil. Be independent. So there's a hidden cost in taking sides and be as transparent as you can. Yay. And can I say that speaking to you, Jimmy, you are, it makes sense.

59:21You wrote the book, but you're like a walking, talking example of all of those rules. And it's a delight to talk to you. It's been so wonderful. That's very kind of you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. No, I've had great fun. Yeah. I really encourage people to, I know we've gone through these, but we've barely scratched the surface and there's nothing like reading as Wikipedia would be a perfect example of, of reading the text properly to really absorb it.

59:44So I encourage everyone to go out and get the seven rules of trust, why it is today's most essential superpower from our trust superhero, Jimmy Wales. And if the sound of my voice isn't too annoying, you could also check out the audio book. Oh, brilliant. Absolutely. That would be really good, actually. Yeah, definitely. Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you so much, Jimmy. Thanks, Jimmy. Cheers. All right. Cheers. Bye-bye. If you enjoyed this episode and want a little more, you might enjoy our subscriber-only eps, available on Patreon and Apple Podcasts.

1:00:15If you want a little more but don't want to pay any more, then you can join our newsletter at theimperfects.com.au. And while you're there, you'll be able to see the names and faces of all the incredible people who helped make this show. A show made on the lands of the Wurundjeri, Woiwurrung people, and we pay our respects to elders past and present. The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.

1:00:38The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.