Google Makes Surprise Hire Of 4 Chan Founder Christopher “Moot” Poole

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Christopher Poole the founder of 4chan in 2003 at the age of fifteen, announced with a blog post yesterday that he would be joining Google in what can only be called a bit of a strange hire and signals the company’s intent on getting more social.

Google shocks many with hire of Poole

Under the alias of “moot,” Pool managed, moderated and administered 4chan for well over a decade. While he started small with presumably just a few friends visiting the site grew to over 25 million unique visitors each month, with many people posting like others do on Facebook, before Mr. Poole sold the site to Hiroyuki Nishimura, whose own 2channel website not only inspired 4chan but a a number of other image boards.

Millions of memes have grown out of 4chan as well as the hacker collective Anonymous which was incubated by 4chan.

Additionally, when Apple’s iCloud was hacked in 2014 providing the hackers with a trove of photos of nude female celebrities, they were posted first on 4chan before finding themselves all over the Internet.

Pool announces Google job

“Today I’m excited to announce that I’ve joined Google,” he wrote.

“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,” Mr. Poole added.

While Poole was clearly happy with his and Google’s decision he didn’t provide specifics of what he would be doing at/for Google. Given is background, something in the social media realm wouldn’t come as a tremendous surprise. Perhaps, a role at Google+ or a secret project is in the cards especially given that Google’s announcement of the hire was left to Bradley Horowitz, the company’s vice president of Streams, Photos and Sharing.

“I can’t wait to contribute my own experience from a dozen years of building online communities, and to begin the next chapter of my career at such an incredible company,” Mr. Poole wrote on his blog.

 

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