0:00:01.000,0:00:03.000
This is your conference,

0:00:03.000,0:00:09.000
and I think you have a right to know a little bit right now, in this transition period,

0:00:09.000,0:00:12.000
about this guy who's going to be looking after it for you for a bit.

0:00:12.000,0:00:14.000
So, I'm just going to grab a chair here.

0:00:23.000,0:00:30.000
Two years ago at TED, I think --

0:00:30.000,0:00:32.000
I've come to this conclusion --

0:00:32.000,0:00:35.000
I think I may have been suffering from a strange delusion.

0:00:35.000,0:00:41.000
I think that I may have believed unconsciously,

0:00:41.000,0:00:47.000
then, that I was kind of a business hero.

0:00:47.000,0:00:53.000
I had this company that I'd spent 15 years building. It's called Future;

0:00:53.000,0:00:55.000
it was a magazine publishing company.

0:00:55.000,0:00:57.000
It had recently gone public

0:00:57.000,0:01:01.000
and the market said that it was apparently worth two billion dollars,

0:01:01.000,0:01:03.000
a number I didn't really understand.

0:01:03.000,0:01:09.000
A magazine I'd recently launched called Business 2.0

0:01:09.000,0:01:11.000
was fatter than a telephone directory,

0:01:11.000,0:01:14.000
busy pumping hot air into the bubble.

0:01:14.000,0:01:16.000
(Laughter)

0:01:16.000,0:01:22.000
And I was the 40 percent owner of a dotcom

0:01:22.000,0:01:25.000
that was about to go public and no doubt be worth billions more.

0:01:25.000,0:01:28.000
And all this had come from nothing.

0:01:28.000,0:01:33.000
Fifteen years earlier, I was a science journalist who people just laughed at

0:01:33.000,0:01:38.000
when I said, "I really would like to start my own computer magazine."

0:01:38.000,0:01:42.000
And 15 years later, there are 100 of them

0:01:42.000,0:01:48.000
and 2,000 people on staff and it was just such heady times.

0:01:48.000,0:01:51.000
The date was February 2000.

0:01:51.000,0:01:54.000
I thought the little graph of my business life

0:01:54.000,0:01:56.000
that kind of looked a bit like Moore's Law --

0:01:56.000,0:01:58.000
ever upward and to the right -- it was going to go on forever.

0:01:58.000,0:02:04.000
I mean, it had to. Right? I was in for quite a surprise.

0:02:07.000,0:02:10.000
The dotcom, ironically called Snowball,

0:02:10.000,0:02:13.000
was the very last consumer web company to go public

0:02:13.000,0:02:24.000
the next month before NASDAQ exploded, and I entered 18 months of business hell.

0:02:24.000,0:02:30.000
I watched everything that I'd built crumbling,

0:02:30.000,0:02:32.000
and it looked like all this stuff was going to die

0:02:32.000,0:02:35.000
and 15 years work would have come for nothing.

0:02:35.000,0:02:37.000
And it was gut wrenching.

0:02:37.000,0:02:44.000
It took eight years of blood, sweat and tears to reach 350 employees,

0:02:44.000,0:02:47.000
something which I was very proud of in the business.

0:02:47.000,0:02:51.000
February 2001 -- in one day we laid off 350 people,

0:02:52.000,0:02:56.000
and before the bloodshed was finished, 1,000 people had lost their jobs

0:02:56.000,0:03:00.000
from my companies. I felt sick.

0:03:00.000,0:03:06.000
I watched my own net worth falling

0:03:06.000,0:03:11.000
by about a million dollars a day, every day, for 18 months.

0:03:13.000,0:03:15.000
And worse than that, far worse than that,

0:03:15.000,0:03:18.000
my sense of self-worth was kind of evaporating.

0:03:19.000,0:03:24.000
I was going around with this big sign on my forehead: "LOSER."

0:03:24.000,0:03:25.000
(Laughter)

0:03:25.000,0:03:29.000
And I think what disgusts me more than anything, looking back,

0:03:29.000,0:03:33.000
is how the hell did I let my personal happiness

0:03:33.000,0:03:36.000
get so tied up with this business thing?

0:03:38.000,0:03:43.000
Well, in the end, we were able to save Future and Snowball,

0:03:44.000,0:03:47.000
but I was, at that point, ready to move on.

0:03:47.000,0:03:51.000
And to cut a long story short, here's where I came to.

0:03:51.000,0:03:57.000
And the reason I'm telling this story is that I believe, from many conversations,

0:03:57.000,0:04:02.000
that a lot of people in this room have been through a similar kind of rollercoaster --

0:04:02.000,0:04:04.000
emotional rollercoaster -- in the last couple years.

0:04:05.000,0:04:08.000
This has been a big, big transition time,

0:04:08.000,0:04:15.000
and I believe that this conference can play a big part for all of us

0:04:15.000,0:04:18.000
in taking us forward to the next stage to whatever's next.

0:04:18.000,0:04:21.000
The theme next year is re-birth.

0:04:21.000,0:04:25.000
It was at the same TED two years ago

0:04:25.000,0:04:29.000
when Richard and I reached an agreement on the future of TED.

0:04:29.000,0:04:33.000
And at about the same time, and I think partly because of that,

0:04:33.000,0:04:38.000
I started doing something that I'd forgotten about in my business focus:

0:04:38.000,0:04:41.000
I started to read again.

0:04:41.000,0:04:46.000
And I discovered that while I'd been busy playing business games,

0:04:46.000,0:04:51.000
there'd been this incredible revolution in so many areas of interest:

0:04:51.000,0:04:57.000
cosmology to psychology to evolutionary psychology to anthropology

0:04:57.000,0:04:59.000
to ... all this stuff had changed.

0:04:59.000,0:05:04.000
And the way in which you could think about us as a species

0:05:04.000,0:05:08.000
and us as a planet had just changed so much, and it was incredibly exciting.

0:05:08.000,0:05:10.000
And what was really most exciting --

0:05:10.000,0:05:15.000
and I think Richard Wurman discovered this at least 20 years before I did --

0:05:15.000,0:05:19.000
was that all this stuff is connected.

0:05:19.000,0:05:22.000
It's connected; it all hooks into each other.

0:05:22.000,0:05:24.000
We talk about this a lot,

0:05:24.000,0:05:27.000
and I thought about trying to give an example of this. So, just one example:

0:05:27.000,0:05:33.000
Madame de Gaulle, the wife of the French president,

0:05:34.000,0:05:37.000
was famously asked once, "What do you most desire?"

0:05:37.000,0:05:39.000
And she answered, "A penis."

0:05:41.000,0:05:44.000
And when you think about it, it's very true:

0:05:44.000,0:05:47.000
what we all most desire is a penis --

0:05:47.000,0:05:50.000
or "happiness" as we say in English.

0:05:50.000,0:05:59.000
(Laughter)

0:06:00.000,0:06:08.000
And something ... good luck with that one in the Japanese translation room.

0:06:08.000,0:06:10.000
(Laughter)

0:06:10.000,0:06:13.000
(Applause)

0:06:15.000,0:06:19.000
But something as basic as happiness,

0:06:19.000,0:06:22.000
which 20 years ago would have been just something for discussion

0:06:22.000,0:06:25.000
in the church or mosque or synagogue,

0:06:25.000,0:06:29.000
today it turns out that there's dozens of TED-like questions

0:06:29.000,0:06:32.000
that you can ask about it, which are really interesting.

0:06:32.000,0:06:34.000
You can ask about what causes it biochemically:

0:06:35.000,0:06:37.000
neuroscience, serotonin, all that stuff.

0:06:37.000,0:06:41.000
You can ask what are the psychological causes of it:

0:06:41.000,0:06:44.000
nature? Nurture? Current circumstance?

0:06:44.000,0:06:47.000
Turns out that the research done on that is absolutely mind-blowing.

0:06:47.000,0:06:52.000
You can view it as a computing problem, an artificial intelligence problem:

0:06:52.000,0:06:54.000
do you need to incorporate

0:06:54.000,0:06:59.000
some sort of analog of happiness into a computer brain to make it work properly?

0:06:59.000,0:07:03.000
You can view it in sort of geopolitical terms

0:07:03.000,0:07:07.000
and say, why is it that a billion people on this planet

0:07:07.000,0:07:13.000
are so desperately needy that they have no possibility of happiness,

0:07:13.000,0:07:15.000
and whereas almost all the rest of them,

0:07:15.000,0:07:19.000
regardless of how much money they have -- whether it's two dollars a day or whatever --

0:07:19.000,0:07:22.000
are almost equally happy on average?

0:07:24.000,0:07:29.000
Or you can view it as an evolutionary psychology kind of thing:

0:07:29.000,0:07:33.000
did our genes invent this as a kind of trick

0:07:33.000,0:07:37.000
to get us to behave in certain ways? The ant's brain, parasitized,

0:07:37.000,0:07:40.000
to make us behave in certain ways so that our genes would propagate?

0:07:40.000,0:07:42.000
Are we the victims of a mass delusion?

0:07:42.000,0:07:44.000
And so on, and so on.

0:07:44.000,0:07:48.000
To understand even something as important to us as happiness,

0:07:48.000,0:07:51.000
you kind of have to branch off in all these different directions,

0:07:51.000,0:07:57.000
and there's nowhere that I've discovered -- other than TED --

0:07:57.000,0:08:02.000
where you can ask that many questions in that many different directions.

0:08:02.000,0:08:05.000
And so, it's the profound thing that Richard talks about:

0:08:05.000,0:08:09.000
to understand anything, you just need to understand the little bits;

0:08:09.000,0:08:11.000
a little bit about everything that surrounds it.

0:08:11.000,0:08:13.000
And so, gradually over these three days,

0:08:13.000,0:08:15.000
you start off kind of trying to figure out,

0:08:15.000,0:08:18.000
"Why am I listening to all this irrelevant stuff?"

0:08:18.000,0:08:20.000
And at the end of the four days,

0:08:20.000,0:08:25.000
your brain is humming and you feel energized, alive and excited,

0:08:25.000,0:08:28.000
and it's because all these different bits have been put together.

0:08:28.000,0:08:30.000
It's the total brain experience, we're going to ...

0:08:30.000,0:08:32.000
it's the mental equivalent of the full body massage.

0:08:32.000,0:08:33.000
(Laughter)

0:08:33.000,0:08:38.000
Every mental organ addressed. It really is.

0:08:38.000,0:08:42.000
Enough of the theory, Chris. Tell us what you're actually going to do, all right?

0:08:42.000,0:08:45.000
So, I will. Here's the vision for TED.

0:08:45.000,0:08:52.000
Number one: do nothing. This thing ain't broke, so I ain't gonna fix it.

0:08:53.000,0:08:56.000
Jeff Bezos kindly remarked to me,

0:08:56.000,0:08:59.000
"Chris, TED is a really great conference.

0:08:59.000,0:09:02.000
You're going to have to fuck up really badly to make it bad."

0:09:02.000,0:09:04.000
(Laughter)

0:09:06.000,0:09:15.000
So, I gave myself the job title of TED Custodian for a reason,

0:09:15.000,0:09:17.000
and I will promise you right here and now

0:09:17.000,0:09:21.000
that the core values that make TED special are not going to be interfered with.

0:09:21.000,0:09:30.000
Truth, curiosity, diversity, no selling, no corporate bullshit,

0:09:32.000,0:09:35.000
no bandwagoning, no platforms.

0:09:37.000,0:09:42.000
Just the pursuit of interest, wherever it lies,

0:09:42.000,0:09:43.000
across all the disciplines that are represented here.

0:09:43.000,0:09:45.000
That's not going to be changed at all.

0:09:49.000,0:09:51.000
Number two: I am going to put together

0:09:51.000,0:09:54.000
an incredible line up of speakers for next year.

0:09:54.000,0:09:57.000
The time scale on which TED operates is just fantastic

0:09:57.000,0:10:01.000
after coming out of a magazine business with monthly deadlines.

0:10:01.000,0:10:03.000
There's a year to do this, and already --

0:10:03.000,0:10:05.000
I hope to show you a bit later --

0:10:05.000,0:10:10.000
there's 25 or so terrific speakers signed up for next year.

0:10:10.000,0:10:13.000
And I'm getting fantastic help from the community;

0:10:13.000,0:10:16.000
this is just such a great community. And combined, our contacts

0:10:16.000,0:10:22.000
reach pretty much everyone who's interesting in the country, if not the planet.

0:10:22.000,0:10:24.000
It's true.

0:10:24.000,0:10:31.000
Number three: I do want to, if I can, find a way

0:10:31.000,0:10:34.000
of extending the TED experience throughout the year a little bit.

0:10:34.000,0:10:39.000
And one key way that we're going to do this is to introduce this book club.

0:10:39.000,0:10:45.000
Books kind of saved me in the last couple years,

0:10:45.000,0:10:48.000
and that's a gift that I would like to pass on.

0:10:48.000,0:10:53.000
So, when you sign up for TED2003, every six weeks you'll get a care package

0:10:53.000,0:10:56.000
with a book or two and a reason why they're linked to TED.

0:10:56.000,0:10:58.000
They may well be by a TED speaker,

0:10:58.000,0:11:01.000
and so we can get the conversation going during the year

0:11:01.000,0:11:07.000
and come back next year having had the same intellectual, emotional journey.

0:11:07.000,0:11:09.000
I think it will be great.

0:11:10.000,0:11:14.000
And then, fourthly: I want to mention the Sapling Foundation,

0:11:14.000,0:11:16.000
which is the new owner of TED.

0:11:17.000,0:11:19.000
What Sapling's ownership means is that all of the proceeds of TED

0:11:19.000,0:11:25.000
will go towards the causes that Sapling stands for.

0:11:26.000,0:11:34.000
And more important, I think, the ideas that are exhibited and realized here

0:11:34.000,0:11:39.000
are ideas that the foundation can use, because there's fantastic synergy.

0:11:39.000,0:11:41.000
Already, just in the last few days,

0:11:41.000,0:11:44.000
we've had so many people talking about stuff that they care about,

0:11:44.000,0:11:46.000
that they're passionate about, that can make a difference in the world,

0:11:46.000,0:11:50.000
and the idea of getting this group of people together --

0:11:50.000,0:11:52.000
some of the causes that we believe in,

0:11:52.000,0:11:55.000
the money that this conference can raise and the ideas --

0:11:55.000,0:12:00.000
I really believe that that combination will, over time, make a difference.

0:12:00.000,0:12:01.000
I'm incredibly excited about that.

0:12:02.000,0:12:10.000
In fact, I don't think, overall, that I've been as excited by anything ever in my life.

0:12:10.000,0:12:12.000
I'm in this for the long run,

0:12:13.000,0:12:17.000
and I would be greatly honored and excited

0:12:17.000,0:12:19.000
if you'll come on this journey with me.