Google hires 4chan's Chris Poole
08 Mar 2016
Google has hired internet entrepreneur Chris Poole of 4chan fame, the notorious cosplay site.
Poole started 4chan in his bedroom at age 15 and the 12 years since, turned it into a 20-million active user image-sharing community around topics ranging from costume play (cospay) and cute animals to anime porn and the notoriously uncensored anonymous channel /b/.
However, after his other startups started losing money, Poole distanced himself from 4chan operations last year and later sold it.
Now Poole has a regular corporate job; he will work under Google's Bradley Horowitz, VP of streams, photos and sharing. TechCrunch cited a source as saying, Poole moved across the country for the job and had been there a week already.
Poole has apparently found the nerdy culture at Google much to his liking. He said in blog post, ''When meeting with current and former Googlers, I continually find myself drawn to their intelligence, passion, and enthusiasm - as well as a universal desire to share it with others. I'm also impressed by Google's commitment to enabling these same talented people to tackle some of the world's most interesting and important problems.''
According to commentators, Google Photos, with its free storage and powerful search, was the first thing the search giant has done right in social for years and Poole could teach Google how to build a community around the product, not just a user base.
Poole created 4chan for fans of anime and manga to meet online, and its over 22 million users are allowed can anonymously in threads covering everything from cooking and video games to the paranormal and graphic pornography.
After Rickrolling gained popularity, the Anonymous hacking collective used 4chan as a platform to attack the Church of Scientology in 2008, the group's first major demonstration. The hacking collective's name was inspired by the ''Anonymous'' nature of 4chan's posting system.
