Jimmy Wales: Richness is Not Wealth
on Sunday, November 15, 2015Jimmy Wales Money Quotation saying wealth is valuing the richness of human experience above financial rewards. Jimmy Wales said:
“Yes, I’m rich, but not in the way most people think about the question, People who equate wealth in any serious way with ‘amount of money that you have’ are missing a lot of richness in how humans value things” — Jimmy Wales
In this quote, Jimmy Wales is acknowledging that while he has accumulated significant financial wealth as the co-founder of Wikipedia, he does not consider money to be the sole or primary measure of his “richness.” Wales seems to be arguing that true wealth and well-being cannot be reduced to mere dollar amounts.
He views humans as valuing many things that don’t involve money, like relationships, experiences, making meaningful contributions, and more. Wales’ view is that focusing too much on the quantity of one’s monetary assets presents an incomplete picture of an individual’s full life and the diverse ways people derive fulfillment and meaning.
His statement encourages looking beyond surface-level financial metrics when assessing concepts like success, happiness and quality of life.