Chris Anderson is giving Ted to whom he has the best idea for his future

For 25 years, Chris Anderson has been the master of ingenuity, wisdom and, sometimes, it is a spooky that is Ted. Since he took over the reins of the small but influential annual conference of “technology, entertainment and design” in 2000, he has made him a recognized, although sometimes mocked, of “ideas that are worth sharing” that includes a Very traffic YouTube channel, thousands of local license meetings called TEDX, and a file of more than a quarter of a million conversations, including those of Elon Musk, Monica Lewinsky and, of course, bonus. There are TED podcasts, a TED radio program in NPR and an educational program called TED-ED.

Now he wants to give everything.

Today is Announcing your intention To get off the non -profit organization and deliver all the Kaboodle to whom he shares the best idea of ​​what to do with it. “It seems an idea of ​​madness, except everything that has happened to Ted since I have been supervising that it has happened when we release something,” he told me, speaking exclusively to Wired. “We give the content, and that is what did Ted Viral. We give the brand in the form of TEDX licenses. When you give another person the control of something, you are giving them the motivation to do their best. There are incredible things that Ted can do in his next chapter. And I think it’s time to try again. Let yourself go and amazed. “

Anderson says he has not burned. But 25 years is a long time. He will not earn money in the transaction, anyway, he is rich, from executing technological publications in the 80s and 90s, and never took a salary in TED. Despite the perception that TED has spent its best moment, he says that the organization is in good shape. While the membership sank during the pandemic, the company’s finances have now recovered. Is most recent financial presentation Informs a balance balance of approximately $ 100 million, and Anderson says that TED has $ 25 million in cash reserves. He adds that the seats (most are sold to $ 12,500 per pop) for the next one -week conference, at the theater of 1,500 customary seats in Vancouver, British Columbia, are exhausted, as always. Sam Altman will be in the building!

Do you want it? Verify your bank account. Anderson wants someone with cash to take TED to a new level. Who could be? An unhappy breach could be a superbillonario who prefers to listen to marine custodians, evolutionary anthropologists and “global souls”, all TED 2025 speakers, instead of hanging out in Mar-A-Lago. On the other hand, Anderson imagines a university, one of the great philanthropic organizations, a main means of communication, a city that seeks a brain version of the Fringe Festival, or even a great technology or company of AI. (Imagine how ancient speakers will welcome their conversations that will be used to train the next version of Gemini or Co -cilot). He reflects that a collective decentralized autonomous organization, a group organized by Blockchain from many POBs, maintains the current community. That idea seems crazy, but so are some of the conversations that you can find in the red circle of the TED stage. Surprise it.

“There is the opportunity to bring knowledge throughout, but with our current resources we cannot do that alone,” he says. “I just want to open the store and see who can bring its own version of that vision and the resources to make it real. And part of me loves the type of playful surprise. I really don’t know what will happen. “

Ted-Sters will not do so either, and that is obliged to cause some anguish. I have been attending TED’s conferences since the 1990s, when an eccentric architect named Richard Saul Wurman directed the event in a small theater in Monterey, California. As TED assistant for the first time, Anderson was so delighted that he bought the franchise and extended to his audience of 550 people in a theater to millions, turning the term “Ted Talk” into a cliché, for good or for good. When I attended, I have written an “ted state” office that Anderson generally takes a good mood, except for the time in 2009 when I criticized him for not having much content about the economic crisis. (He responded probability on stage). It will be strange in Ted without him, but then it would be more strange to continue forever.