There's a whole caste of people you will never interact with, they're the TED attendees.
I'd venture a guess that as soon as TED became a little popular, it's value actually went down because a bunch of blow-hards would spend the 8500$ to try and give a sales pitch to the elite caste. When that happens, the elite move on.
As an example - in Toronto there's a thing called 'Granite Club', which's just a big gym with tennis courts etc. The initiation fee is 53,000$ per couple.
That's just to make sure people who actually work for a living can't afford it.
There's two things non-technology people don't seem to know about TED when they mention it to me.
First that TEDx events have little to do with TED. Second the prices for proper events are in the elitist levels of society. It's no surprise when you start to notice the audience members are more famous than the speakers.
I'd venture a guess that as soon as TED became a little popular, it's value actually went down because a bunch of blow-hards would spend the 8500$ to try and give a sales pitch to the elite caste. When that happens, the elite move on.
As an example - in Toronto there's a thing called 'Granite Club', which's just a big gym with tennis courts etc. The initiation fee is 53,000$ per couple.
That's just to make sure people who actually work for a living can't afford it.