Wikimedia Foundation Defends Wales Video

Wikimedia Foundation Defends Wales Video Transcript

[ Music ] ^M00:00:02

>> Right now I'm very pleased be joined by Sue Gardner from the Wikimedia Foundation. You're the Executive Director. Thanks for joining us today.

>> Thank you.

>> Now I understand it's been a kind of a hard week for you because there's been some news about allegations of inappropriate spending for Jimmy Wales and some other controversies. So, let's get that out of the way -- the top. What's going on with that?

>> Yeah it has not been a great week for the Wikimedia Foundation and I actually felt really sorry for Jimmy Wales 'cause it's been super tough for him, much harder for him than for anybody else. What's happening here is we have a disgruntled former employee and the world has always been full of disgruntled former employees. What's different though now is that now -- people didn't used to have a platform. Now, they have a platform. So this guy has a blog and what he's done is he's used that blog as a platform to spread a whole bunch of unsubstantiated rumors and gossips and so forth. And it's hard for us to even respond to because -- I don't know if you've read it, it's not entirely even clear necessarily always what's being alleged. So, it's really difficult to sort of come back to. And we don't wanna get into a long back and forth on somebody's blog. The foundation -- I don't know if you know this, we have 12 employees.

>> Uh-hum.

>> So if we have one person sort of duking it out on a blog with people, then that's 11 people doing the actual work. We have an important work to do. So, I guess what I would say is -- I don't know if you know Jimmy. Have you met him?

>> Uh-oh.

>> He's a good guy. He's a really good guy. I'm feeling sorry for him. He's a modest guy. He's a frugal guy. Jimmy has never done anything wrong. So, I've been with the foundation since June, so for six -- seven months and in that period of time I think Jimmy's expense is a total of $1100 worth of stuff. He took one trip to New York for us to do some media related to our fund-raiser just before Christmas. And that's it. He doesn't live well. He doesn't live a lavish lifestyle and to the extent that he does live with whatever lifestyle he does. It's not out of Wikimedia's coffers.

>> Okay, so what would cause something to get that -- to bring these allegations, though, I mean, you know.

>> Who knows? I mean, people develop dislikes, personal vendettas -- I have no idea. ^M00:02:00 [ Music ]