Jimmy Wales

So we had implemented this seven-stage review process to get anything published.

And two things came of that.

So one thing, one of the earliest entries that we published after this rigorous process, a few days later, we had to pull it because as soon as it hit the web and the broader community took a look at it, people noticed plagiarism and realized that it wasn't actually that good, even though it had been reviewed by academics and so on.

So we had to pull it.

So it's like, okay, well, so much for a seven-stage review process.

But also, I decided that I wanted to try.

I was frustrated.

Why is this taking so long?

Why is it so hard?

So I thought, okay.

I saw that Robert Merton had won Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on option pricing theory.

And when I was in academia, that's what I worked on, was option pricing theory, how to publish paper.

So I'd worked through all of his academic papers, and I knew his work quite well.

I thought, oh, I'll just – I'll write a short biography of Merton.

And when I started to do it, I'd been out of academia.

I hadn't been a grad student for a few years then.

I felt this huge intimidation because they were going to take my draft and send it to the most prestigious finance professors that we could find to give me feedback for revisions.

And it felt like being back in grad school.

It's like this really oppressive sort of like, you're going to submit it for review and you're going to get

A little bit of the bad part of grad school.