It’s been more than twelve years since Christopher Poole founded 4chan, and a little more than a year since he decided to step down as the infamous website’s administrator, so what’s next? Well, as surprising as it may seem, Poole has landed a job at Google, according to a post on his official Tumblr blog on Monday. It’s not clear what he’ll be doing at the company, but considering how he created one of the most-popular image board communities in the world, it stands to reason that he’ll be doing something related to that.
When 4chan founder Christopher Poole (better known on the internet as moot) announced he was retiring from the Web community, many wondered what to expect next. Over one year later, we have our answer. Via a blog post, Poole has announced that he is joining Google in an undisclosed position. Can he pivot and save Google+? Will he create an image board community out of Google Photos? If the endorsement by Google’s Bradley Horowitz, who previously lead the product team on Google+ and is now VP of Streams, Photos and Sharing, is any indication, expect Poole to put his image community skills at work. At the time of Poole’s retirement from 4chan, the community had seen more than 42 billion page views and more than 1 billion visitors. Nine months later, 4chan was sold to a Japanese messaging board. Poole also started two companies on the side that focused on art, imagery and drawing – though both subsequently shut down. Whatever Poole’s doing at Google, I’m sure he’s glad he doesn’t have to pay $150K to use Google Analytics anymore.
