I was determined never to write another negative post about TED. Really. I feel like my views on the conference's smug-tendencies have been well-stated. And, as I said in this article in Fast Company, I think the TED Fellows program and the TEDx program have gone a long way towards fulfilling the stated mission of TED, doing actual outreach into places the conference long professed to care about. Beyond that, I'm just hearing of a lot of Valley people who aren't going anymore after the move to Long Beach, making the conference less of an annual to-do for the tech community. But then I got this email below, and all the reasons I wrote the original BusinessWeek column came flooding back. If TED would just own up to being about making the wealthy, famous and powerful feel comfortable--like other clubby, high level affairs like Sun Valley or the World Economic Forum-- I wouldn't have an issue with it. Business conferences have good reasons to be elitist; deals are getting done and high-level conversations need to be private sometimes. But when credentials are revoked at the last minute based purely on the whim of a more important member of the TED community, the inner workings are just too much like a country club for an organization whose stellar content is all about pluralism and uplift. It's the Sarah Silverman incident all over again. Oh you made one of the more important people feel uncomfortable? Then you're out of here. 
Rachael Leigh Cook Elisha Cuthbert Ciara Rachel Hunter Heidi Montag
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