Christopher Poole facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Christopher Poole
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Poole in 2012
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| Born | 1987/1988 (age 36–37) |
| Other names | moot |
| Education | Virginia Commonwealth University (no degree) |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, former Google employee |
| Known for | Founder and former head administrator of 4chan |
Christopher Poole (born in 1987 or 1988), also known online as moot, is an American Internet entrepreneur. He is famous for creating the anonymous imageboard website 4chan in October 2003. He was still a teenager at the time. Poole was the main boss of 4chan until January 2015. He also started another online community called Canvas, which was active from 2011 to 2014. Later, Poole worked for Google starting in 2016. He left Google in 2021.
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About Christopher Poole
Poole was born in 1987 or 1988 and grew up in New York City. When he was a teenager, he liked to visit online forums. He was a member of the Something Awful forum. He also often visited Japanese online message boards like 2channel and 2chan.
Keeping His Identity Secret
For a long time, Poole tried to keep his real name a secret. He used the online name "moot." In real life, he sometimes used the name Robert "Bob" Bopkins. His real name, Christopher Poole, was finally shared in The Wall Street Journal in 2008. Some journalists even wondered if "Christopher Poole" was also a made-up name.
Poole believes that being anonymous, or unknown, on the internet is important. He gave a speech about this idea at the TED2010 conference. He thinks that being anonymous online can be very valuable.
In 2009, a newspaper reported that Poole had gone to Virginia Commonwealth University. He studied there for a few semesters but did not finish his degree. At that time, he was living with his mother. He was trying to figure out how to make money from 4chan.
His Online Work
Starting 4chan
Christopher Poole launched 4chan on October 1, 2003. He used the basic design from a Japanese website called 2chan. His goal was to mix the anime culture from 2chan with the community feel of Something Awful.
In April 2009, Time magazine held an online poll. They asked people to vote for the most influential person of 2008. Poole won with over 16 million votes. He beat famous people like Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey. It was later found that users of 4chan's /b/ board had worked together to help him win. They used clever ways to vote for him many times. The first letter of each person's name in the poll even spelled out a secret message.
In April 2010, Poole helped in a court case. He explained some of the special words used on 4chan, like "OP" (original poster) and "lurker." This helped the court understand the website better.
Creating Canvas
In 2010, Poole raised money to start a new online project called Canvas. Important investors like Marc Andreessen helped him. Canvas officially started on January 31, 2011. It was a place where users could share digitally changed images. Unlike 4chan, users on Canvas had to use their Facebook Connect account to identify themselves. A similar app called DrawQuest was launched in 2013.
However, on January 21, 2014, Poole announced that both Canvas and DrawQuest were closing down.
After 4chan
On January 21, 2015, Christopher Poole stepped down as the main boss of 4chan. He then started to hand over the website to three anonymous 4chan moderators. He also looked for someone to buy the website. On September 21, 2015, Hiroyuki Nishimura, who founded 2channel, became the new owner of 4chan.
On March 8, 2016, Poole announced that he had been hired by Google. He worked in a secret role at first. Some Google employees had concerns about this hiring because of certain content found on 4chan. In June 2016, Poole joined Google's special startup program called Area 120. In 2018, he changed jobs again and became a product manager for Google Maps. After five years at Google, he left the company on April 13, 2021.
Legal Matters
In November 2012, it was reported that Poole sent a letter to a new company called moot.it. He asked them to stop using that name. He said it was too similar to his online username, "moot."
See also
In Spanish: Christopher Poole para niños
