Chris Anderson gives Ted to anyone who has the best idea for his future

For 25 years, Chris Anderson has been a maestro of wit, wisdom and sometimes, gooy Blaather who is TedS As he took over the reins of a small but influential annual conference of “Technology, Entertainment and Design” in 2000, he built it into a famous, if he sometimes mocked, the conglomerate of “ideas that are worth sharing” that Includes strong YouTube channel traffic, thousands of local licensed gatherings called TEDX, and an archive of over a quarter million conversations, including those of Elon MuskMonica Levinsky and of course Bono. There are TED podcasts, a NPR TED radio show and an educational program called TED-Ed.

Now he wants to give it all.

Today is it declares its intention Withdraw from non -profit purpose and hand over the whole Kaboodle to anyone who shares the best idea what to do with it. “It seems like an idea for candy, except for everything that has ever happened to Ted, as I have supervised that it happened when we released something,” he told me, talking exclusively to Wired. “We gave the content and that’s what Ted Viral did. We distributed the brand in the form of TEDX licenses. When you give someone else’s control over something, you give them the motivation to do their best. There are amazing things that Ted can do in his next chapter. And so I think it’s time to try the same again. Play and be amazed. “

Anderson says he is not burned. But 25 years is a long time. He will not make money from the transaction – anyway he is the rich, since the technological publications in the 1980s and 90s – and he has never taken a salary in Ted. Despite the notion that Ted has passed his prime ministerHe says the organization is in good shape. While membership was sagging during the pandemic, the company’s finances have already recovered. This The most recent financial submission He reports a balance of a hassle -free balance of about $ 100 million, and Anderson says Ted has $ 25 million in cash reserves. He adds that the seats (most sold at $ 12,500 per pop) for next week conference, in custom, built from 1500 seats in Vancouver, British Colombia, are sold out as always. Sam Altman will be in the building!

Do you want it? Check your bank account. Anderson wants someone with the money to bring Ted to a new level. Who can this be? The unlucky default can be some superbiliard who prefers to listen from marine guardians, evolutionary anthropologists, and “global souls”-all speakers of Ted 2025 earlier than to hang in Mar-A-lago. Instead, Anderson plans a university, one of the big philanthropic organizations, a major media, a city looking for a brain version of the Fringe Festival or even a large technological or AI company. (Imagine how the former speakers will welcome their conversations, which are used to train the next version of Gemini or Copilot. This idea seems far away, but some are some of the conversations you can find in the red circle on Ted’s stage. Surprise him.

“There is an opportunity to bring knowledge away and wide, but with our current resources we cannot do this solo,” he says. “I just want to open the tent and see who can bring in its own version of this vision and resources to make it real. And part of me just loves the look of a playful surprise. I sincerely do not know what will happen. “

Ted-srs also doesn’t have what some anger has to cause. I have been attending TED conferences and outside the 1990s, when an eccentric architect named Richard Saul Vurman managed the event at a small theater in Monterey, California. For the first time, a participant in Ted, Anderson was so fascinated that he bought a franchise and expanded his audience from 550 people into a theater to millions, turning the term “ted talk” into a cliché, for the better or worse. When I attended, I wrote a “Ted state” send that Anderson usually accepts good humor except for the time in 2009 when I criticized it Because there is not much content of the economic crisis. (He Responded witnessly On stage.) It will be strange in Ted without it, but then it would be more difficult to continue forever.