I see the main problem not being the corporatism so much as the emphasis on rather messianic speakers, who stake out stark, very strong claims with few caveats, and claim a giant revolution is happening or imminent.
There's something interesting about that, so perhaps the argument should be against people who watch only TED talks, not about TED existing; it's one way to get one style of information. But it definitely is one style of information; it's a world in which AI researchers are represented by Ray Kurzweil, technology theorists by Clay Shirky, videogames by Gabe Zichermann, etc.
"Only grandiose solutions are credible for grandiose problems." I'm not sure who said that but its the feeling I get when I listen to some TED talks.
That being said, thinking 'big' can help break out of ruts you don't know you are in. I've seen it happen with engineers when confronted with a huge unimplementable grandiose architecture say "Well that is great astro architectures but maybe we could ... and fix this other problem." where the ... was something previously not considered. Sometimes listening to an irrationally optimistic person can free your mind from self imposed constraints.
There's something interesting about that, so perhaps the argument should be against people who watch only TED talks, not about TED existing; it's one way to get one style of information. But it definitely is one style of information; it's a world in which AI researchers are represented by Ray Kurzweil, technology theorists by Clay Shirky, videogames by Gabe Zichermann, etc.