After laying the foundation for one of the Internet's most infamous neighborhoods, 4chan founder Chris Poole is moving on to tackle the seldom traveled streets of Google+.
Poole founded 4chan at the age of 15 about a dozen years ago. Since then, the image sharing community has risen to ranks of the most popular web properties in the U.S. and, because of the anonymous nature of the site, its notoriety has grown in kind.
Google+, meanwhile, has struggled to establish itself in a market that's dominated by Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It's hard to say where Google+, launched about five years ago, ranks among the other social networking sites because Google has shielded the site's health from the outside world.
In any case, Google+ is about to get a shot in the arm in the form of Poole. It's unclear what role Poole will play in pumping up Google+, but he confirmed on Monday his move to the search engine company's social networking sector.
"Today I'm excited to announce that I've joined Google," Poole stated. "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."
Poole was also wowed by Google's support in empowering its employees to take on some of the "most interesting and important" problems in the world, he stated.
"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," stated Poole.
After his success with 4chan, Poole ventured out with a pair of startups. But just a few years after failing to win the confidence of investors, the startups, Canvas and DrawQuest, were shuttered in early 2014.
And after moving on from those failed ventures, Poole announced, a year later, that he was leaving his post as 4chan's administrator. After announcing the fall back from 4chan, Poole gave an interview to TechCrunch and was asked if he'd consider working for Google+.
"Well, Larry Page can give me a call," Poole said. "I gave a quote right when News Corp bought Myspace that Rupert could give me a call. Maybe it's the same joke. Larry Page can give me a call."
