
Is TED Elite? - mjfern
http://blog.nilofermerchant.com/is-ted-elite
======
newhouseb
I spoke at TED this last week. While it was one of the most inspiring things
I've ever attended, I was somewhat underwhelmed with the age demographics
represented. There were maybe 10 people under the age of 25 (I'm 22). On one
hand it kind of exposed the inherent agism expressed in the valley that I
was/am accustomed to, on another hand it was frustrating that it seemed as if
I was somehow a young'n hanging out with the adults, and on yet another other
hand it was inspiring to see people who have worked on one thing their entire
lives and stuck with it until they've changed the world (whereas in the Valley
so many people want to make their FU money and sit on a boat for forever).

It's definitely elitest in the strictest sense, but you have to realize that a
lot of the people (at least the speakers) have passions that they have pursued
not so that they could one day speak at or attend TED but because those ideas
actually matter a lot. The opportunity to attend TED is a byproduct of pursing
your passion, which is infinitely more important than infinite snacks, gift
bags full of stuff or even getting to meet your heroes (I met Jeff Bezos).

Unrelenting passion will get you farther than any ticket to a conference will.
The lucky ones are not the ones who get what they want (like a ticket to TED),
the lucky ones are those who get to do what they are meant to do (who change
the world for the better).

~~~
rudiger
The fact that young people don't have thousands of dollars to spend on an
annual conference isn't "ageism". Older people simply have more discretionary
income.

~~~
newhouseb
Yeah - I didn't pay since I was a speaker but that's a good point. Since it
goes to a non-profit it is tax deductible so in real dollars it is somewhat
cheaper than the actual $7.5k it costs, Jessica Mah understands the finances a
lot better (she's who explained this to me), I don't know how they would
expect anyone else to know this sort of thing though...

~~~
Duff
So for most professionals, the tax-deductibility at most is 30% of the
purchase price. And that is assuming that you can deduct the complete cost.

------
protomyth
"conversations are truly the only way in the world is changed, not technology"

No. Action is the only way things get done. Ask anyone waiting for the Army
Corp of Engineers to get a plan done to relieve flooding. Lots of
conversations, but no action.

Right now it is TED, later it will be the opposite complaints about SXSW (why
are these people here?). I seem to remember a quote by one of the owners of
Studio 54 about the only way they got in was to own the club.

It still seems, online at least, there are a lot of experiments in social
networking in this area that could be the basis for someones software.

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michaelchisari
Great stuff comes to TED, but to be honest, I don't know if I've seen great
stuff _come out_ of it, other than videos of talks that could have been
recorded at a local community college.

Oh, and of course it's elitist, charging $10000 for an invite-only conference
is the very definition of elitist. If it was populist, I think you'd see a
very different approach to organizing.

There are versions of TED that are more ad hoc and grassroots that happen
every day, and it seems like those are the places where the cool things
happen.

~~~
mkr-hn
Do any of them post videos up online? I've been looking for something like
that.

~~~
michaelchisari
Conferences along these lines often don't, and that seems to be the biggest
disconnect, and the one thing TED has done superbly over anything else. It
really needs to become a trend that, no matter how narrow the subject, posting
a video of a talk online should be standard operating procedure.

It's the worst in academia, but due to lack of resource or even due to a
preconception that people outside of the conference aren't interested, it's
something that gets overlooked _way_ too often.

~~~
_delirium
If it's a big conference where you're already talking to a big auditorium, I
could see that. If it's a small conference or workshop, though, it completely
changes the dynamics of a talk if you're doing it to be recorded for permanent
archival on the internet, vs. talking to 20 colleagues in a room. TED is
explicitly a very public platform for charismatic public speakers, which is a
good thing to exist, but not what _every_ conference should be like imo.

I personally am not too great at public speaking and don't relish the idea of
something I was talking about slightly awkwardly being on the internet
forever, so if talks were regularly being recorded at some conferences, I
would probably just not submit to give talks at those conferences. Not all of
us are TED speakers! I do try to make my stuff freely available and accessible
in the medium I'm more comfortable in, though (written text), by writing
accessible blog-style expositions, in addition to putting up PDFs of full
papers.

Keynote talks are a bit different, since they're invited specifically to be
big public talks. So for those, yeah, maybe it should become routine for them
to be recorded/archived. Fortunately, those are also the ones that often have
the broadest interest.

~~~
mkr-hn
It might be a good idea for conferences to let people opt out of recording and
provide a transcript instead.

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hristov
Reading this awful, pompous, self congratulating prose and imagining a
thousand people like her gathered at the same place exchanging ideas gives me
the willies.

I was not one of the lucky ones allowed the privilege to pay 10 k to attend,
but I will have to drive by long beach today, so I must be careful to fill up
my tank so as to avoid any possibility of accidentally getting stuck in Long
Beach and having one of those geniuses curate at me.

But we have not thought of the real victims of TED. What of actual curators.
You know the people in museums. They get a quiet harmless job, and then that
blabbering pack of idiots pick up the word that describes their profession,
and soon anybody that has anything to do with "curating" will be universally
hated and ridiculed.

~~~
rudiger
Sour grapes?

In reality, I suspect that the truth about TED lies somewhere between
"pretentious circle-jerk" and "conference of the world's most inspired
thinkers".

~~~
edderly
I know what you mean, but doesn't there seem to be something vulgar and the
amount of money ($6000) to attend?

You can read plenty of things in the press about the extremes of celebrity,
and no doubt if someone opened a Nightclub which cost $6000 to enter many
'normal' people would be offended.

Just because someone might try to justify the TED fee in terms of 'for a good
cause' doesn't help - it still gives me a feeling these people are living in a
slightly different world.

~~~
damoncali
That's because poor people have nothing to contribute (in the eyes of TED).

At least that's the only logical conclusion I can come to. If they didn't
think that, and are not in it for the money, then why else would they exclude
them?

Someone tell me where I've gone wrong here, because the underlying attitude is
sickening.

~~~
khafra
The audience isn't the contributors; they're the audience. The speakers don't
pay; if some homeless guy had the credibility and charisma to speak at TED,
there'd be nothing stopping him.

Let's be very clear, here: TED does not exclude poor people, they exclude non-
extraordinarily-rich people. If Bill Gates had released mosquitos all over a
crowd of poor, or middle-class people, he'd have been an asshole. Because he
did it over a crowd of the uber-rich, he was awesome and promoting awareness
of important problems to people who can do something about them.

The fact that TED charges so much for a seat makes them elitist and generates
buzz and social proof; the fact that they share the content for free makes
them egalitarian. But they focus on getting the eyeballs that are equipped to
actually do something about the cool new ideas presented there.

~~~
damoncali
Interesting take. Makes sense. Still rubs me the wrong way, but I can at least
see a method to the madness with your reasoning.

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mukyu
Technology does not change the world, are you serious? To believe that you
must think that everything from irrigation techniques that allowed agriculture
and formation of cities to improved forms of transportation and communication
that allowed cultures to meet did not have impact.

She also says that the people criticizing TED have not been, when the first
link she uses is the story of someone that has been to TED. The articles she
talks about could use more 'journalism' and 'a simple google search' to
improve them, but no mention of anything that is actually wrong with them.

~~~
defen
> To believe that you must think that everything from irrigation techniques
> that allowed agriculture and formation of cities to improved forms of
> transportation and communication that allowed cultures to meet did not have
> impact.

In my experience, for many people the word "technology" is synonymous with
"new technology". Extant technology is just part of the way the world works
for them. The author probably wouldn't consider a screwdriver to be
technology, for example.

------
kenjackson
TED has some really good talks. Have I ever been invited? No. But I've also
never been invited over to the people who live down the street. And what's
even worse, when I requested a podcast of their interior they called the
police.

There are so many things that I don't get invited to, its the things that I do
get invited to I look at with suspicion. And the fact that TED gives me free
access to their talks, makes them OK in my book.

------
jagtesh
Anyone can apply to become a TED fellow
(<http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/247>). A couple of people I know personally
have been past fellows. Going by what I've seen, it may be easier to become a
TED fellow than to be selected for Y Combinator, but that's another argument.

On the contrary, the registration fee for the TED INK conference held in
Lonavala, India recently was $2200 a pop for residents
(<http://theinkconference.com/Register>), which no middle class Indian can
afford. Even that didn't guarantee that one would actually get a seat, 'cause
surprise! They will "..review each application form in detail to find the
right match of attendees". Amazing.

------
xiaoma
I'd say that TED's weakness isn't that it's elite, but that it's become more
and more overtly PC. In 2006, I absolutely loved TED. At that time, almost
every talk was eye-opening. Now, some of them still are and others are random
feminist/environmentalist/save Africa themes that don't really have anything
to do with technology, entertainment or design.

~~~
defen
O'Sullivan's First Law: All organizations that are not actually right-wing
will over time become left-wing.

~~~
jaskerr
For me, the more interesting question is the natural response - Why?

~~~
defen
That's the $64,000 question. I don't know the answer, and I doubt it can be
answered in a forum comment or blog post. The best I can do is throw out some
ideas.

Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy[1] - a sufficiently large bureaucracy will come
to be dominated by an oligarchy, which will act to defend its own interests
rather than to achieve the stated goals of the organization.

A corollary of this observation: A bureaucracy whose existence is not
externally influenced by its ability to achieve its goals will work against
those goals. To achieve its goals would be to negate the reason for its
existence, which would have negative consequences for the oligarchy. A key
point here is "externally influenced by its ability to achieve its goals" - a
business which does not achieve its goals will lose to its competitors,
whereas a government agency or NGO designed to reduce poverty will only become
stronger if poverty actually increases.

This leads to Conquest's Second Law of Politics[2] - every organisation
appears to be headed by secret agents of its opponents. The question then, -
Why is the movement always leftward? In his original article[3] O'Sullivan
says "the people who staff such bodies tend to be the sort who don't like
private profit, business, making money, the current organization of society,
and, by extension, the Western world. At which point Michels's Iron Law of
Oligarchy takes over — and the rest follows."

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Conquest>

[3] [http://old.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback-
jos062603....](http://old.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback-
jos062603.asp)

------
aik
Regardless of whether it's elitist[1] or not -- isn't the fact that the videos
are available to the world wonderful? To me it seems like they want the world
to be informed and hence inspired by all the great things people are doing in
the world. They aren't necessarily fully shutting you out. If TED was
available to anyone, even to go to in person, I think it would lose some of
the intimacy that it has -- it would be much more difficult, if you attended,
to spend time with those who inspire you.

[1] By Wikipedia's definition it sure sounds elitist: "Elitism is the belief
or attitude that some individuals, who form an elite — a select group of
people with intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other
distinctive attributes — are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the
most seriously or carry the most weight or those who view their own views as
so; whose views and/or actions are most likely to be constructive to society
as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities or wisdom render them
especially fit to govern."

------
DavidChouinard
Sure it is. And that's a good thing.

Anything that's worth participating to is elitist. It brings together
interesting, fascinating and smart people. Most admirably, TED succeeded at
keeping the audience eclectic. Nobody learns from homogeneity and confirming
their thoughts with people who think the same.

As a TED attendee and TEDx organizer, I can definitely confirm on this.
Whether for my event or for TED, I see the talks as just an excuse to get
amazing _people_ together. Everything — from the high cost to the application
process — is about ensuring that every person in the audience genuinely wants
to participate and contributes to the experience.

Case in point: the talks are posted for free online to weed out those who
attend for the information in the talks. The Internet trivializes pure
knowledge and makes human interaction so much more valuable.

When you bank your event on people (which is pretty much the only thing you
can bank on in the age of the Internet), you have no choice but to make it
elitist. In a good way.

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headShrinker
I would make a distinction here. They are _Elite_ , which is good. They are
the top echelon of their profession. They are also _Elitist_ , which is the
real problem here.

tl;dr... in my personal experience, TED is snobby, and pretentious.

I share space with a few TED fellows on a daily basis. They seemed like nice
guys but after a short period of time I got the message that they were an
exclusive club and I wasn't allowed in.

I realize these people are ridiculously smart and sometimes that is correlated
with being socially awkward, but a times they were simply rude.

I really wanted to like these people but they made it very hard. Eventually, I
stopped trying to be nice and stopped acknowledging them all together. They
seemed quite fine with that.

(They began to seem like divas to me.)

------
btipling
Yes. Is that a problem? I don't know. I am not elite so I am excluded. I do
not like being excluded, I do not like feeling that I am less than someone
else so I do not like TED's elitism. I like the videos though.

------
davidmurphy
I don't care if it's elite. Elite is not a bad thing.

(Speaking of elite, don't get me started on "elite" being a bad label for
politicians -- I WANT the elite, the best of the bet, running our country.)

~~~
michaelchisari
Elitism doesn't always lead to the elite, though. Sometimes (often times) it
just leads to the entrenched.

~~~
Helianthus16
I would go so far as always. Power tries to hold onto power.

------
varunsrin
"Laura Stein has set the TEDx licensee policy so that one __cannot __charge
for attendance"

This is incorrect, when we organized TEDxCMU in 2010, Laura Stein told us that
some other events had sold tickets to cover costs.

Here is an extract from the TED rules: " (TED will allow certain TEDx events
to charge a small admission fee -- always under $100 -- to help cover the
event's production costs. In order to charge an admission fee, you must obtain
permission from TED first.)"

\- <http://www.ted.com/pages/tedx_general_rules>

~~~
DavidChouinard
To clarify: TEDx events can charge up to 100$ for their regular conference.
TEDx _can't_ charge admission to a livestream of TED/TEDGlobal/TEDIndia.

~~~
varunsrin
I'm a bit confused - how could a TEDx event charge admission for a livestream
of an official TED event, to which they are not affiliated? Afaik
TED/TEDGlobal/TEDIndia are not TEDx events.

Did you mean that TEDx events could not charge for a livestrem of their own
event? That is probably true.

~~~
DavidChouinard
No, TEDx event (and anyone for that matter) can't charge for admission to
event who's purpose is to watch a livestream of a TED (non-x) event.

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ryanpers
maybe it isnt "elitist" but it is most definitely attended by the ELITE.
Sayings that $10,000 attend a conference is anything but expensive is being
elite.

Just deal with it and roll on already. Let's face it, only the BEST speakers
doing all sorts of things are invited to speak at TED.

~~~
chipsy
This, and it bears saying that _being_ elite is going to change your outlook.

TED is great for what it is - trying to gather the "best of the best" and get
their messages out. Worthy ideas can come from far more humble and marginal
groups of people, too. But those groups get less backing, so of course there's
going to be a division.

------
danielharan
HN has jumped the shark / nuked the fridge. "Is TED elitist?". Seriously? $6k
for an invite-only conference? Not elitist? _facepalm_

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damoncali
Elite? not so much. Elitist? Definitely.

------
danbmil99
Does the Pope shit in the woods?

~~~
kenjackson
This current Pope in particular, or Pope's in general?

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mmcdan
For better or for worse... I doubt Jeff Bezos, Meg Ryan, Larry Page, or even
Jacqueline Novogratz would be attending and interacting at a conference that
wasn't at least some bit elitist. To know that the fellow attendees are
"peers" who have some comparable "level of achievement" puts them in a
different mindset than being surrounded by people who are extremely passionate
about something but may not have as much of a track record. The former
scenario is networking for them, the latter is putting in face time/public
relations. I think that if you make the TED conference itself more open, then
you'll lose some of the big name people. The big name people who do attend
will be in that "lecture to the audience" mode and likely leave right after
the speeches.

TEDx is the non-elitist version of the TED. I think these are just as
inspiring and motivating, but without the distraction of the big names. The
character of the event is different(less money, prestige, and social posturing
in the room) but the spirit of sharing ideas and doing what we can is the
same. I think there is a place for both TED and TEDx in the world. Whichever
you most want to attend depends on your own personal goals and circumstances.

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boxedin
TED is elitist but it shares its videos with everyone which makes it great.

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HaloZero
I have a question, who decides who gets invited to TED? Is it just the
organizers? Do they just sort through the entire applicant list and determine
who is getting in based on what they've done'?

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brudgers
Two myth 3's?

