Sure, but the money criteria is not relevant when you want to select people for their quality. The people that history remembers over centuries are more than often people that were not very wealthy during their lives because they were too much ahead of their times and as such : misunderstood.
But I agree the journalist's rant is poor because it doesn't ask the good questions. An invite-only conference is not a problematic concept. Having money as a criteria is, because it conveys the idea that intesteresting people and "thinkers of tommorow" are necessarily wealthy. History makes this assumption very questionable.
Who said that TED was selecting people primarily for "quality"? (If they say so, which I'm not sure they do, it's purely sales pitch.)
It's obvious to me that TED is, by design or by accident, an invite-only conference for people who tend to be rich. The fact that it's famous is just a side effect of that: if you invite one celebrity to a meeting, you'll get some press coverage; if you invite several hundred celebrities you'll get a slew of press coverage.
The fact that TED is full of smart people giving smart talks is also a side effect of the guest list: smart people are drawn to present at TED for the same reason that Willie Sutton was drawn to rob banks: that's where the money is. Convincing, say, Bill Gates that your work is interesting is a pretty darned good way to advance your work, especially if the press is there, and even if he doesn't pay you a massive fee for the speech -- which, for all I know, TED does.
(I don't mean to imply that rich people are nothing but walking piles of money -- although, if they were, many of us would still gladly talk to them. Many people are rich for a reason! Bill Gates is nobody's fool. Rumor has it that Larry and Sergey are kind of smart. And other people make use of their wealth to become very expert in one thing or another: money buys a lot of education and research. Al Gore didn't rise through the ranks of the climate scientists, but he's talked to one hell of a lot of them.)
If you want to talk to poor, misunderstood, trained "thinkers of tomorrow" with interesting ideas, go to any local university and you'll find several hundred. I should know. Shouldn't we hold conferences for these poor, misunderstood thinkers? We do! There's thousands of academic conferences every year. There are three going on right now in your town. You just don't know about them, because the cameras are pointing at TED.
I don't think it's a crime for rich people to hold a private invite-only meeting. (Whether or not they should be allowed to make binding, enforceable political decisions about my life in such a meeting is a completely different question.) I'm glad that, at this particular rich-person's meeting, they decide to invite scientists and technologists and great artists, instead of concentrating entirely on polo ponies and booze. And I'm glad that they film a lot of the meeting and release those films for free.
We're obviously not talking about the same thing. Are the speakers invited for free or they must pay as well ? I was talking about the guys who make the speeches, not the general audience. I think I just realized that the talkers are really invited and do not pay anything. It makes more sense indeed :)
But I agree the journalist's rant is poor because it doesn't ask the good questions. An invite-only conference is not a problematic concept. Having money as a criteria is, because it conveys the idea that intesteresting people and "thinkers of tommorow" are necessarily wealthy. History makes this assumption very questionable.