4chan Founder “moot” to Speak at TED

I'm very excited about this. Chris Anderson asked for an intro to moot (who I only barely know through ROFLCon[1]) earlier this year; when he said it was to have him speak at TED, I was floored.<p>The thought, "Chris Anderson reads 4chan?! Maybe even /b/?" crossed my mind only for a moment -- instead, it dawned on me just how obvious a speaker for a session on "provocation" he would be. I was impressed he'd be on the TED radar, frankly, which goes to show how ignorant I am.<p>The theme of the 2010 TED is "What the World Needs Now" -- for all of the garbage on 4chan, it represents the 'cost' of the free and open exchange of ideas that is the Internet.<p>I'm expecting a thoughtful talk from Chris. But even if he trolls TED, it'll still make for a great talk. And in a way, further underscore the importance of provocation (at least for some) in what the world needs now.<p>[1] <a href="http://breadpig.com/blog/category/rofldna-project/" rel="nofollow">http://breadpig.com/blog/category/rofldna-project/</a>

I guess I'll be the first to speak up in defense of m♡♡tles speaking at TED.<p>It's clear that he's relevant to the HN community, given that 4chan is a startup begun from his mom's basement when he was just 15 years old. Despite misinformation about 4chan being run for a loss, he does make money and can afford to run the site without ads from time to time.<p>He took some available code (2chan's), which was initially very simple, and grew it into a profitable site that is ranked in the Top 1000 on Alexa and that has an outsized influence on internet culture. That's an extremely rare phenomenon, and one that most people here would ostensibly like to repeat.<p>I'm sure that even if his TED talk features inside jokes it has the potential to be really interesting, and certainly doesn't warrant the <i>prima facie</i> dismissiveness from the other commenters here.

I heard him speak at a media arts festival here in Vienna a few months ago.<p>I'm pretty sure he won't be trolling TED or throwing around in-joke references: He actually seemed pretty sick of all the mindless repetition of memes (and how could he not be?).<p>He's a smart and thoughtful guy, was very humble, self-deprecating and sarcastic, and had a bunch of interesting anecdotes to tell -- although it did appear that he fairly randomly stumbled into the situation and doesn't have many deep, original insights on online communities/social software/the meaning of life, the universe and everything.<p>Then again, I believe he same may be said of Jimmy Wales, for example...

I don't really see any good from him speaking, at worst he will pull off a giant troll and his whole speech will be a flop, and at best he will be talking about 4chan's culture.

Exactly what can Moot offer, in terms of discourse? Moot's fame was very much a matter of happenstance and ungodly luck - the whims of the internet, rather than anything innately genius about his approach or handling. It'd be like asking a kid that's, by chance, made a paper airplane with an unusually long flight time about aerodynamics.

I was more excited to hear Bill Gates was going to speak.