TED is a venue for middlebrow ideas by middlebrows for other middlebrows.

Same with symposia and fora with “distinguished guests” like the Dalai Lama, or Kissinger or one of the Clintons or many other officials.

They do a circuit, often have someone prepare note for them where they rarely challenge prevailing thought among the attendees and come out of it with a lot of money.

There will be some nuggets once in a while but there is rarely any groundbreaking insight like when physicists and mathematicians in the XXth century brought new ideas, challenged old ideas and often suffered indignity for some time before they were vindicated.