TED

TED was the face of the cult.

It was the fountain head of propaganda, spewing "be yourself", "slums are the future".  Thousands of people, all the most affluent members of society and academia apply every year to be a member, of them two thousand (2,000) are chosen and these are each asked to pay eight thousand dollars ($8,000).  Speakers are not payed, but rewarded with networking opportunities.  Everyone wants to pitch their idea, everyone is sharking around looking for investment.  This is where start-ups go to live or die.    

I was working for myself at the time for SOLARIS and our work had attracted enough attention so one year I was actually accepted and I had to think about actually getting eight thousand dollars together, and enough for a plane ticket down south.  At this point we had essentially nothing left in the company and would have closed down if we didn't secure an investor.  But this was a venture capital Roman orgy.