It's weird: you do a TED talk on something, and people think that you suddenly have a lot of answers around the topic.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Because TED is for, and by, unbelievably rich people, they tiptoe around questions of the justness of a society that rewards TED attendees so much for what usually amounts to a series of lucky breaks.
I feel like great TED Talks are ones that are a little bit subject to interpretation, that do provoke further conversation - and potentially controversy.
Usually, TED only invites the most accomplished and famous people in the world to give talks.
For most of the millions of people who watch TED videos at the office, it's a middlebrow diversion and a source of factoids to use on your friends. Except TED thinks it's changing the world, like if 'This American Life' suddenly mistook itself for Doctors Without Borders.
Having seen TED from a distance, I always thought if ever there was a place for someone like me, the outcasts, people who maintained who they are despite being told what they were, it was TED.
Some people think, if you're in the public eye, that you have to have an answer for everything and it has to be boring.
Sometimes people complicate things by thinking too much about what someone might think of what they said or did.
In case you're unfamiliar with TED, it is a series of short lectures on a variety of subjects that stream on the Internet for free.
In life, people talk at right angles. One asks a question, and the other replies in part, then uses that part to move the conversation to something else. Everyone has an agenda, has something they're trying to say - or not say.
What I love about the TED is that it's not, 'Hey, take this check and enjoy.' It's, 'Do something with this, and we'll help you.' I think that's the most beautiful prize I've ever heard of.
No opposing quotes found.