In celebration of our billionth video view, TED reached out to some of our favorite players in the worlds of technology, entertainment and design, asking which TED Talks they find themselves going back to again and again. To see the famous faces who’ve told us so far — from Bill Gates to Barbra Streisand — head to our guest-curated playlist page. Today, Daryl Hannah, Alexis Ohanian of Reddit and Philippe Starck add their selections to the mix.

Daryl Hannah, actor and strong-willed activist, has gathered together the TED Talks she’s found most motivating over the years. Spanning the globe — from the Black Hills of the United States to the underwater crevices of Antarctica — these talks are instructive and informative but, most of all, inspiring. Head to the playlist section to watch her selections »

Alexis Ohanian changed the shape of the internet as a co-founder of Reddit. Naturally, this TED speaker is fascinated by talks about the global idea flow.

Ohanian writes of picking his favorite talks, “Throughout history, there have always been awesome people with great ideas who never had a chance to share them because of some bullshit reason — they were born in the wrong place at the wrong time or to the wrong gender or race. But finally, we have a platform that is a true level playing field. I fight for Internet freedom because on an open Internet, where all links are created equal, good ideas win. Anyone, anywhere can share an idea that can be seen by millions by the end of the day.

“Stories like William Kamkwamba’s inspire me. (Watch his talk, ‘How I harnessed the wind.’) I had the chance to meet him the year I spoke and was humbled by a young man who learned engineering from old textbooks in a foreign language, and was able to turn scrap metal into a functioning windmill. When he finally got access to a computer with the Internet and Googled windmills, he wondered where the Internet had been the whole time he was teaching himself physics in an old library. Think of all the Williams whose genius we’ve missed out on.

“If we do it right, the Internet will be the platform that allows us to benefit from the ideas of people around the globe. But none of this is guaranteed, and there’s still tremendous work to be done, which is why I’m fascinated by the TED Talks that touch on the issues that hold back and boost our Internet industry.” Head to the playlist section for his picks »

And one more talk Ohanian highly recommends: Christina Xu’s talk from TEDxBoston, “The importance of being awesome”

Philippe Starck, who gave the TED Talk “On design and destiny,” is not your ordinary designer. His work ranges from the luxe interiors of boutique hotels to reinventing ordinary objects like the toothbrush. Head to the playlist section, where he’s handpicked talks about science and design — ideas that spur imagination and inspire creativity »

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Stay tuned to the TED Blog tomorrow for playlists from Steve Case, Brandon Boyd of Incubus and Hans Rosling. Special thanks to Mashable and iTunes for helping us share these playlists. Head to iTunes to download these lists as limited-edition podcasts and to Mashable to see their exclusive additional lists from tech and business superstars.

And as always, we want to hear about the talks you love. This week, tweet a favorite playlist — or the name of talk that deeply resonated with you — using the hashtag #topTED.

Watch Philippe Starck’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

Read more about Philippe Starck on TED.com.

NEW: Read the transcript >>

Transcript: Philippe Starck, TED2007

Philippe Starck: Why design?

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/197

To watch this TEDTalk, download it or comment on it, and to view many more TEDTalks, visit http://www.ted.com

You will understand nothing with my type of English. Is good for you because you can have a break, after all these fantastic people. I must tell you I am like that [shakes hands], not very comfortable, because usually, in life, I think my job is absolutely useless. I mean, I feel useless. Now, after Carolyn [Porco], and all the other guys, I feel like shit. And definitively, I don’t know why I am here, but — you know the nightmare, like you are an impostor, you arrive at the opera, and they push you, “You must sing!” [gasp!] I don’t know.

So! So! Because I have nothing to show, nothing to say, we shall try to speak about something else.

We can start, if you want, by understanding (it’s just to start, it’s not interesting) how I work. When somebody comes to me and ask for what I am known, I mean, yes, lemon squeezer, toilet brush, toothpick, beautiful toilet seats, and why not, a toothbrush. I don’t try to design the toothbrush. I don’t try to say, oh, that will be a beautiful object or something like that. That doesn’t interest me.

Because there is different types of design. The one, we can call it the cynical design, that means the design invented by Raymond Loewy in the ’50s, who said, what is ugly is a bad sale, La Laideur se vend mal, which is terrible. It means the design must be just a weapon for marketing, for producer to make product more sexy, like that, they sell more, it’s shit, it’s obsolete, it’s ridiculous. I call that the cynical design.

After, there is the narcissistic design; it’s a fantastic designer who designs only for other fantastic designers. [laughs]

After there is people like me, who try to deserve to exist, and who are ashamed to make this useless job, who try to do it in another way, and they try, I try, to not make the object for the object but for the result, for the profit for the human being, the person who will use it. If we take the toothbrush — I don’t think about the toothbrush. I think, “What will be [finger in mouth] the effect of the brush in the mouth?” And to understand what will be the effect of the toothbrush in the mouth, I must imagine: Who owns this mouth? What is the life of the owner of this mouth? In what society this guy live? What civilization creates this society? What animal species creates this civilization? When I arrive — and I take one minute, I am not so intelligent — when I arrive at the level of animal species, that becomes real interesting.

Me, I have no power to change anything. But when I come back, I can understand why I shall not do it, because today, it’s more positive than “do it,” or how I shall do it. But to come back, where I am at the animal species, there is things to see. There is things to see, there is the big challenge. The big challenge in front of us.

Because there is not a human production that exists outside of what I call the “big image.” The big image is our story, our poetry, our romanticism. Our poetry is our mutation, our life. We must remember, and we can see that in any book of my son of 10 years old, that life appears 4 billion years ago, around — 4 billion point 2? [voice off] Yes, point 5, OK, OK! I’m a designer, that’s all, of Christmas gifts.

And before, there was this soup, called soupe primordiale, this first soup [bloop bloop bloop!], sort of dirty mud, no life, nothing. So then [pshoo-shoo] lightning [pshoo] arrive [pshoo-shoo], makes life [bloop bloop], and that dies. Some million years after, [pshoo-shoo!] [bloop-bloop] wake up! At the end, finally, that succeeds, and life appears. We was so, so stupid. The most stupid bacteria. Even, I think, we copy our way to reproduce, you know what I mean, and something of — oh no, forget it.

After, we become a fish; after, we become a frog; after, we become a monkey; after, we become what we are today, a supermonkey, and the fin is, the supermonkey we are today, is at alph of the story. Can you imagine? From that stupid bacteria to us, with a microphone, with a computer, with an iPod, 4 billion years. And we know, and especially Carolyn knows, that when the sun will implode, the earth will burn, explode, I don’t know what, and this is scheduled for 4, 4 billion years? [looks offstage] Yes, she said “something like that.” OK, that means we are at alph of the story. Fantastic! It’s a beauty! Can you imagine? It’s very symbolic. Because the bacteria we was had no idea of what we are today. And today, we have no idea of what we shall be in 4 billion years. And this territory is fantastic.

That is our poetry. That is our beautiful story. It’s our romanticism: Mutation. We are mutants. And if we don’t deeply understand, if we don’t integrate that we are mutants, we completely miss the story.

Because every generation thinks we are the final one. We have a way to look at Earth like that, you know [raises hand over head] “I am the man. The final man. You know, we mutate during 4 billion years before, but now, because it’s me, we stop. Fin For the end, for the eternity, with a red jacket …” I am not sure of that. Because that is our intelligence of mutation and things like that. There is so many things to do, it’s so fresh.

And here is something: Nobody is obliged to be a genius, but everybody is obliged to participate. And to participate, for a mutant, there is a minimum of exercise, a minimum of sport … The first, if you want, there is so many, but one which is very easy to do, is the duty of vision. I can explain you. I shall try.

If you walk like that [looking straight down, small steps], it’s OK, it’s OK, you can walk, but perhaps, if you walk with the eyes like that, you will not see, oh!, there is a hole. And you will fall, and you will die. Dangerous.

That’s why, perhaps, you will try to have this angle of vision [looking forward 45 degrees] OK, I can see, if I found something [whistle, steps around imaginary obstacle], and they continue, up up up. I raise the angle of vision, but it’s still very selfish (selfish? egoiste? yes, selfish). You, you survive. It’s OK.

If you raise the level of our eyes a little more [looking straight ahead] you go, “I see you, oh my god you are here, how are you, I can help you, I can design for you a new toothbrush, new toilet brush, something like that, I live in society, in community.” It’s OK. You start to be in the territory of intelligence, we can say. From this level, the more you can raise this angle of view, the more you will be important to society. The more you will rise, the more you will be important for the civilization. The more you will rise, to see far and high, like that, the more you will be important for the story of our mutation. That means intelligent people are in this angle [75-105 degrees off the ground] That is intelligence. From this [105 degrees] to here [180 degrees], that, it’s genius. Ptolemy, Eratosthenes, Einstein, things like that. Nobody’s obliged to be a genius. It’s better, but nobody.

Take care, in this training, to be a good mutant. There is some danger, there is some trap. One trap: the vertical. Because at the vertical of us, if you look like that, “Ah! my god, there is God. Ah! God!” God is a trap. God is the answer when we don’t know the answer. That means, when your brain is not enough big, when you don’t understand, you go, “Ah, it’s God, it’s God.” That’s ridiculous. That’s why — jump, like that? No, don’t jump. Come back. Because, after, there is another trap. If you look like that [205 degrees], you look to the past, or you look inside if you are very flexible, inside yourself. It’s called schizophrenia, and you are dead.

That’s why every morning, now, because you are a good mutant, you will raise your angle of view. Out, more of the horizontal. You are an intelligence. Never forget: like that, like that. It’s very, very, very important.

What, what else we can say about that. Why do that? It’s because we — if we look from f
ar, we see our line of evolution. This line of evolution is clearly positive. From far, this line looks very smooth, like that. But if you take a lens, like that, this line is ack-ack-ack [makes jagged motion]. It’s made of light and shadow. We can say light is civilization, shadow is barbaria. And it’s very important to know where we are. Because some cycle, there is a spot in the cycle, and you have not the same duty in the different parts of the cycle.

That means, we can imagine, I don’t say it was fantastic, but in the ’80s, there was not too much war, like that [a little], it was … we can imagine that the civilization can become civilized. In this case, people like me are acceptable. We can say it’s luxus time. We have time to think, we have time to I-don’t-know-what, speak about art and things like that. It’s OK. We are in the light. But sometimes, like today [dives down] we fall, we fall [diving sounds] so fast, so fast to shadow, we fall so fast to barbaria. With many, many many face of barbaria. Because it’s not, the barbaria we have today, it’s perhaps not the barbaria we think. There is different type of barbaria. That’s why we must adapt. That means, when barbaria is back, forget the beautiful chairs, forget the beautiful hotel, forget design, even, I’m sorry to say, forget art. Forget all that. There is priority, there is urgence. You must go back to politics, you must go back to radicalization, I’m sorry if that’s not very English, you must go back to fight, to battle.

That’s why today I’m so ashamed to make this job. That’s why I am here, to try to do it the best possible. But I know that even [if] I do it the best possible (that’s why I’m the best!), it’s nothing. Because it’s not the right time.

That’s why I say that, I say that nothing exist if it’s not in the good reason, the reason of our beautiful dream, of this civilization. And because we must all work to finish this story. Because the scenario of this civilization, about love, progress, and things like that, it’s OK, but there is so many other different, other scenarios of other civilizations. This scenario, of this civilization, was about becoming powerful, intelligent, like this idea we have invented, this concept of God. We are God now. We are. It’s almost done. We have just to finish the story. That is very, very important. And when you don’t understand really what’s happened, you cannot go and fight and work and things like that. You go to the future back, back, back, back, like that. And you can fall, and it’s very dangerous. No, you must really understand that.

Because we have almost finished, I’ll repeat this story. And the beauty of this: in perhaps fifty years, sixty years, we can finish completely this civilization, and offer to our children the possibility to invent a new story, a new poetry, a new romanticism. With billions of people who have been born, worked, lived, and died before us, these people who have worked so much, we have now bring beautiful things, beautiful gifts, we know so many things. We can say to our children, OK, done, that was our story. That passed. Now you have a duty. Invent a new story. Invent a new poetry. The only rule is, we have not to have any idea about the next story. We give you white pages. Invent. We give you the best tools, the best tools, and now, do it. That’s why I continue to work, even if it’s for toilet brush.

I had my mind blown in a thousand different directions by TED2007 today.  My big impression was having felt the future, in myriad ways.  From hallway conversations to the content of speaker presentations to the feeling of just being a part of it all, it was a fabulous first day. 

My assignment, as handed down by the head office of TED, is to tell you about the thing which blew my mind the most.  However, I’m going to take the easy route and talk about everything buzzing in my mind right now.  All the speakers were wonderful, but here are my personal highlights.  So bear with me; here we go:

• Philippe Starck:  Proof positive that tangents are but the arcs of greater circles, Philippe gave us a very big picture look at life, beauty, meaning, the universe, and brushes for one’s toilet and mouth.  No photos, no precious design shots, just him and the space around him dancing around the stage in a virtuostic lesson in what it means to be a charismatic speaker.  Strictly nonlinear in presentation — and likely uncomfortable to some — his time on stage tickled me pink, and was formidable!  Watch for the TEDTalks on this one.  You need to see it to understand it all.
• Hans Rosling:  How does one go about topping your previous world-changing effort?  Hans Rosling did it.  With equal parts killer interface design + serious storytelling + oodles of data + approximately a third of a meter of reliable Swedish steel, Hans Rosling pulled it all off.
• Murray Gell-Mann: Was the field of particle physics ever presented in a more human, accessible way?  Elegance personified.  I loved every minute of this.  It was like being in the room with a triumvirate of geniuses: Newton, Einstein, Gell-Mann.  Wow.
• Jeff Han:  Okay, I want one.  Please.  I want one.
• Steve Miller: As part of TEDUniversity, told stories about Tiger Woods to reveal some elegant points about how to set standards of excellence and then rise to meet them.
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:  A moving essay on jazz, leadership, responsibility, and the need to look deep within to find excellence.  Inspiring.
• Raul Midon:  A degree of artistic achievement which made we weep, so powerful was his music.  The high point of Day One.  And recipient of my TED Quote of the Day Award:  "Feel the fear, but do it anyway".

Onward!  Tomorrow bodes to be another amazing day.

photo credit: Jurvetson

Cassini imaging team head Carolyn Porco: "So there are possibly liquid water, organic materials and excessive heat on Saturn and its moons. Which means that Saturn could be a place were life is possible. If we can demonstrate that Genesis has happened not once (Earth) but twice (Saturn)  then we can infer that it has happened hundreds of thousands of times across the solar system. If we can demonstrate that Genesis has happened not once [on Earth] but twice [including Saturn] in the solar system, then by inference that means it has occurred a staggering number of times across the universe in its 13.7 billion year history".

Nobel prize of physics Murray Gell-Mann: "In fundamental physics, beauty is a very successful criterion for choosing the right theory".

Psychologist Steven Pinker: "The truth is that our ancestors were far more violent that we are, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful times in history".

Computer scientist Jeff Han: "We basically have to un-teach people what they have learned so far about computing, and convince them that they can use several fingers, that several people can work on the screen at once".

Architect Philippe Starck: "I believe in general that my job is absolutely useless; but now, after Carolyn and these guys, I feel like shit".

Statistician Hans Rosling: "Bring me my sword!" (Rosling is a serious demographer but he is also — another deadly serious activity — one of the few sword-swallowers active in Sweden, and he ends his speech swallowing a Swedish bayonette).

So imagine my excitement when I learned that Philippe Starck would be on the TED2007 speaker lineup.  A maverick’s maverick, Starck continues to exert a massive influence on our aesthetic and social landscape.  As the TED2007 program states:

He is the most famous and prolific designer alive.  The streamlined and organic look of his architecture, interior design and product design has influenced designers and consumers alike, and as a result he has changed the way we live.

Which made me ask, "What’s my Starck factor?  How much Starck is there in my day to day life?"  The answer is: quite a lot, and more than I thought.  Here’s a quick survey — your results may vary:

First, the Starck Gnomes.  As it happens, I have a lot of meetings at work in a room staffed by these patient and sturdy little guys.  I think they help bring good karma to the room, which makes some of the harder meetings a little easier:

I also occasionally hold an outdoor meeting where we end up sitting on this Starck sofa. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to tell you that my bottom doesn’t find it to be a plush sit. That’s okay, though, because the comfort limitations curtail the length of those sessions, and academic studies have shown that 10-20 minute meetings are more productive than their lengthier cousins:

Above all, I like sitting in this Eros chair.  It feels great to sit in and be seen in.  And it helps you empathize with the olive in a martini.  Fun!:

In a drawer at home I keep this incredible watch by Starck for Fossil.  I love the way it looks on the wrist,  like a timepiece beamed back from the future.  It’s my "special occasions" watch.  The green readout is cool, too:

Here’s one I don’t have.  But if I was living in a flat in Paris, I’d be riding this Aprilia Moto 6.5 whenever a pedal bike wouldn’t do.  Where other motorcycles get tripped up by their own macho fixations, saying "I’m going to take you for a ride," this one has a kindlier aspect.  It says "Let’s go for a ride — together."  And I love the orange splash.  Perfect:

Another one on my "to buy" list.  This clock from Oregon Scientific is extremely clever in that it beams the time up on to the ceiling, so that you can read it while lying in bed.  Come to think of it, that easy glance up could be useful in many situations, such as making sure that that work meeting goes no longer than 20 minutes: 

That’s just a brief personal inventory based on the life works of just one TED speaker.  It’s worth your while to browse through Starck’s immense portfolio.  Imagine the breadth and depth of impact across all of the TEDsters through time.  What’s your TED Factor?