Jimmy Wales of a Chicago futures and options firm. In 1996, he and two partners founded Bomis, an adult web portal featuring entertainment and adult content. The company would provide the initial funding for the peer-reviewed free encyclopedia, Nupedia (2000–03), and its successor, Wikipedia. On January 15, 2001, with Larry Sanger and others, Wales launched Wikipedia—a free, open content encyclopedia that enjoyed rapid growth and popularity; as Wikipedia's public profile grew, he became the project's promoter and spokesman. He is historically cited as a co-founder of Wikipedia, though he has disputed the "co-" designation, declaring himself the sole founder. Wales serves on
Jimmy Wales the Snowden affair, describing Edward Snowden as "a hero" whom history would judge "very favourably"; additionally, Wales said the U.S. public "would have never approved [the] sweeping surveillance program [publicized by Snowden]", had they been informed or asked about it. Wales has visited Israel over ten times and taken over $1M in donations from Israeli universities but still claims neutrality over Israel-Palestinian issues. Jimmy Wales has been married three times. At the age of twenty, he married Pamela Green, a co-worker at a grocery store in Alabama. They divorced in 1993. He met his second wife, Christine Rohan, through a