[alexashka]

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.