In January 2015, Poole announced that he would be stepping down as the 4chan administrator. On January 23, he hosted a final Q&A with site users using the /qa/ board and YouTube to livestream. This marked the beginning of his "retirement" from being an administrator and owner of the website after eleven and a half years. He began a process of turning control of the site over to three anonymous 4chan moderators while searching for a buyer for the website. On September 21, 2015, it was announced that Hiroyuki Nishimura, founder of the Japanese BBS 2channel, would take over as the site's owner. 