“The Seven Rules of Trust” by Jimmy Wales goes behind the scenes of Wikipedia to explain how it was founded and (more surprisingly) how it gained the trust of the masses and is still going strong, 20+ years later. Wales outlines seven principles that were at the heart of Wikipedia’s culture which led to their success. He also draws examples from other online endeavour (like AirBnB and Uber) to show parallels and effective counterexamples. Ultimately, Wales does a great job of illustrating what it looks like when you develop tools with the end user’s trust in mind.

Wales’ principles range from simple ideas like “transparency builds trust” to more nuanced ideas like ”the rules of trust will not deliver if you don’t”. I found his argument on the importance of a strong and clear purpose for individuals working together particularly interesting because we usually don’t think of trust in those terms.

There were a few parts of Wales’ argument I wasn’t 100% sold on, including his hyper-optimistic view of AI and the positive role technology can play in fixing our current crises of trust. With that said, I did really appreciate that Wales is self-aware of his own flaws and offers the critiques others have shared of him up-front in the book itself.

Overall, this was a super interesting book, well-written, and offers helpful insight for anyone looking to better understand the origins of Wikipedia. I’d argue this should also be recommended reading for anyone working in technology and AI today, because so many of Wikipedia’s “old school” principles are ones I wish the tech industry would listen to more carefully.

This book is brilliant, and so absolutely beautifully honest.
It's fascinating to get so much detail of what was/is going on behind something so huge and popular as Wikipedia.

The author's writing style felt so humble and relatable. And the entire time reading it, I just wanted to call up Jimmy Wales and exclaim a loud and excited, "Thank You! You're making the biggest difference in my book launch, and you don't even know it." Because sometimes hearing about someone else's early steps and where that's lead them over the years is EXACTLY the right medicine against giving up or feeling low.

It is my opinion that a good nonfiction book should always feel like talking to a great and very experienced friend. And I don't know whether it's because Jimmy Wales is talking about The Seven Rules of Trust as a subject, or perhaps it's just his impeccable decades honed business ethics, but reading his story (that also felt so personal) really did make me both trust him, and also rediscover new ideas regarding trust issues in people.

Overall, it's the perfect value of fact based and informative, and pleasantly soothing for anyone who's just starting some business adventure and needs a supportive outlook.

Thank you so much to Crown Publishing for providing me with this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The best business book I've read this year!