4Chan founder Chris Poole BI Chris Poole, the founder of the controversial forum 4chan, is leaving the company he founded more than 11 years ago at age 15.

"As 4chan's sole administrator, decision maker, and keeper of most of its institutional knowledge, I've come to represent an uncomfortably large single point of failure," he writes.

He'll be retiring from his role and passing his duties on to a few senior volunteers.

Since Poole started 4chan as a high schooler, the site became known for its often seedy or hateful content — notorious for spawning online abuse, high-level pranks, and the infamous hack of Sarah Palin's email.

Even though 4chan became one of the biggest, most powerful websites in the world, Poole never made any money from it, and had to use money from a second startup, DrawQuest, to pay the bills.

"The journey has been marked by highs and lows, surprises and disappointments, but ultimately immense satisfaction," Poole writes of 4chan. "I'm humbled to have had the privilege of both founding and presiding over what is easily one of the greatest communities to ever grace the Web."

Interestingly, Poole announced the failure of his drawing-based art community DrawQuest exactly a year ago today.

Here's Poole's full letter: