Should you read The Seven Rules of Trust by Jimmy Wales?

The Seven Rules of Trust was the book club book for March 2026. In April 2026 we're reading The Peril's of Perception by Bobby Duffy, you should join us.

When an author makes a categorical mistake to reinforce a point I have a hard time trusting the rest of what they say. In The Seven Rules of Trust, Jimmy Wales makes one of these category errors early as he cites Uber's profit claims to reinforce his point that if you can rebuild trust, success will follow¹. Uber is only profitable in the years Wales cites because of accounting tricks that make them look profitable. The core business isn't profitable and only survives because of heavy investment by people that hope it captures a market and can then jack up the prices to recover the invested cash.

Now I think that Wales has many good points in his book as well. I find his assertion that most people, most of the time, want to collaborate and cooperate². If we didn't have some pull towards this method of behaviour we would be unable to build the civilisation we have built today. I agree that to work together we need a purpose³ and that finding this common ground without needing to follow every single cause that everyone in the group wants us to is harder today than it has been⁴.

That's not even an exhaustive list. Jimmy Wales put together an excellent organisation in Wikipedia, yet his early misstep into believing a Silicon Valley ploy had me pausing and wondering if I was just missing other category errors in the book. For me it classed him with all the other Silicon Valley/Big Tech people that are high on their own supply, on purpose so that the money keeps flowing towards them. So that they can continue to accrue power and use that power to influence how the world operates without consulting the little people that have to live in the world.

Am I holding Wales to a standard that's too high, that no one can surmount? Quite possibly. I make errors all the time and hope that my life isn't judged by a single error. I hope that my life is judged by all the times I was an excellent husband and father, not the few times I had a long day and let the inner demons we all have rule my behaviour.

Footnotes

¹ The Seven Rules of Trust Pg 35

² The Seven Rules of Trust Pg 36

³ The Seven Rules of Trust Pg 49

⁴ Moral Ambition Pg 77