WTW48: There Once Was a Jordan Peterson MBA Program. What Happened to It?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:41 Thomas: And welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 48. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is Lydia Smith. How you doing?

0:00:47 Lydia: I am doing pretty well. How are you?

0:00:49 Thomas: Good. I am excited to finally be, well, no, I can't say finishing, but I mean we're getting to the, kind of the pausing point on some Jordan Peterson content.

0:00:55 Lydia: We'll never be done. Yeah. And are some just very strange things and like a little mini side quest.

0:01:06 Thomas: A very strange man.

0:01:08 Lydia: Yeah. And so I hope everyone enjoys this. I have been knee deep in a lot of like corporate filings and random stuff. So yeah.

0:01:20 Thomas: First I think you have a bit bit of an update in terms of information on the, the Jordan B. Peterson master's program.

0:01:24 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, So the act in MBA, I had mentioned that Peterson developed this with And I didn't really get into the other guy at all in our previous episode because we were talking about Peterson, right? I think it is important to know that it was.

0:01:42 Thomas: Adolf Hitler was the other guy. It's important to say that now.

0:01:46 Lydia: I mean, so his name is Jeff Sandifer, and he's a Texan billionaire making his money in what would you expect? Oil. Yeah. He made all of his money in oil, then launched a conservative foundation called the Ed Foundation that helps fund libertarian think tanks, politicians. It's affiliated with the Koch brothers. He had a program at the University of Texas that did. He wanted I guess, and this entrepreneurship sort of thing.

0:01:47 Thomas: Oh God. Wow. Yeah. I've taken so much from the world in terms of polluting, ruining the environment, taking all the money, ruining everyone's life. I think I'll give back by training others to do so as well.

0:02:22 Lydia: Literally resources also. Yeah. Yeah. But it was really important to him because he doesn't like education.

0:02:35 Lydia: So it was very important to me. It was really, really important for him to him that the program that he was overseeing at, well, at University of Texas, that the other people affiliated with him would be part-time instructors, like they're people from the industry, kind of thing, that they're not professors like not professors they are, right? It was very important to him, like, these are people who who the walk talk the talk, you know, and so they're they're going to come in part-time to instruct students and well

0:02:41 Thomas: That no one would learn anything. Oh, like people who would would be educated. Oh no. What? Wait, what? Not professors. Hmm. Okay. Cause only a fucking commie would teach college students. Is that what it is? So he's like, from this guy's mind, he's like, I can't, anyone who would be a college professor is a fucking Commie. I'm not dealing with that.

0:03:15 Lydia: Yeah so So we're starting to get into that, the early, you know, anti-tenure stuff that was happening at the time, because the University of Texas converted the program and they ended up hiring all tenure It was like a master's of business sort of thing that he was doing with the University of Texas before.

0:03:27 Thomas: Converted what program to what? Are you, I'm sorry, I might've lost track. Are you saying this was before the Jordan Peterson? Oh, okay. So I gotcha. Okay, so So this was the asshole oil money guy, MBA. And then you're saying at some point, was he out or,

0:03:36 Lydia: Yeah. So this was back in like the 90s. So way, way before. Oil money guy. OK. In 2002. Yeah. So the school decided to replace all the instructors with tenure track professors. They were doing a big conversion of the program. And when that happened, he quit because he was like, this is not what I signed up for.

0:04:02 Thomas: Taking my oil and I'm going home, just grabs like a bunch of oil in his arms and leaves.

0:04:05 Lydia: And he founded the Acton School of Business. And so this is how we get to Acton, a private MBA program based in Austin. It ended up becoming affiliated with a private Baptist university called the Hardin-Simmons University. And it was housed there from 2002 to, spoiler alert, 2019. 19. for the program prior to the fellowship, you know, because it existed for a long time without Jordan Peterson's involvement. But the reviews ranged from things that were invaluable and life changing or failed experiment for trust fund kids. So very polarized position position here. It's a program that condenses an MBA, you know, at the time, like most MBA programs are like two years or 18 months, condensed it down to a one -year program. And they said, you're going to work really, really hard. A hundred hour weeks is the norm here. And if you're not ready for that, then don't bother applying. Come, you know, 2018, Hardin-Simmons University was going to start cutting funding for the program. And so Sandifer needed something to jazz up Acton.

0:04:10 Thomas: Oh, okay. Okay.

0:05:17 Thomas: Yeah. If you're an MBA program and you're not making, you're like like the the loss leader of the Baptist school. Like that's a bad sign.

0:05:24 Lydia: A private school, too, that can charge whatever they want. Yeah. Yeah. He needed something to kind of jazz it up and ended up connecting with Peterson. They met at a steakhouse in Iowa during his book tour, and they decided, like, let's do this together. We're going to launch this fellowship. And it was going to be a nine month, essentially nine month write the academic year Peterson fellowship. And it was a nice timing for Jordan Peterson because this lines up with when he was telling all of his patron supporters, you know, that your money is going to help fund an online education environment, online educational institution. And so I think this was like a glimmer of putting promise that to practice a little bit for him.

0:05:25 Thomas: Yeah, this is perfect. Yeah interesting.

0:06:11 Thomas: Well, that's, know, in a way, again, I keep making Trump comparisons, and I actually think it makes sense because, you know, how Trump can't run as an insider. He's always an outsider, because you're just running on everything currently sucks, and I'm lying about how everything's ruined and horrible, and all that. And I'm the outsider to make it better. And so Peterson, I think, a weird position for him to have been in, to be an active college professor but be like everything that's happening in universities fucking sucks, man. And so I think there's been this pressure And you see that with University of Austin or whatever it is, which hopefully we'll get to eventually, where they're like, we need to do our own version of school and it's not going to have any of the woke crap. Kind of backed into that corner, logically speaking, like they have to, you know, that

0:06:20 Lydia: Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

0:06:55 Lydia: So, yeah. So it was going to be a fellowship kind of reinventing what they would be doing. Very, again, entrepreneurship focused, but then also pulling in this meaning of life bit that Peterson, you would bring to the table.

0:07:09 Thomas: They can't get him to shut up about. So he has to. Yeah.

0:07:10 Lydia: Yeah. And would be like a hybrid environment. So they would have the initial part of the fellowship would be online and then five months in Austin for those that wanted to continue or were allowed to continue. You. Twenty five hundred people applied for this first year. They had 50 slots that they would be offering. Yeah.

0:07:31 Thomas: Wow. It's the best of the best. The best, sir.

0:07:33 Lydia: Yeah, and a graduate said the program ultimately ended up with 37 folks by very small, you know, insular group of people.

0:07:44 Thomas: But that, I mean, for a MBA program, that might be, I don't know what the norm would be. Yeah. I mean – well, consider an MBA is like the business -y version of graduate degree. It's like you don't take – no one takes on 37 PhD students.

0:07:47 Lydia: Like decent? I don't know. Yeah Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah

0:07:57 Thomas: Like, it's actually –

0:07:58 Lydia: No my cohort was like 10 and we all had different advisors.

0:07:58 Thomas: Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if this – that was actually quite large for an MBA program. Him, yeah, you touched on that a little, uh,

0:08:01 Lydia: Yeah okay. On Reddit people shared stories about what this process looked like for their applications. I spoke a little bit about it in the previous one but I got some more information from my additional research. They that Acton offered them a position but they had had a time limit to it. So you had to accept the offer within 72 hours, in addition to, you know, your $1,000 that you would be sending over to them.

0:08:31 Thomas: Okay.

0:08:31 Lydia: So, you had make a very, very quick decision. Person actually emailed the school after the initial, you know, acceptance that they received and expressed some concerns about, like, the vagueness of the the program. And part of it is because after that meeting in the Iowa Steakhouse, two months later, they launched the program, it was very, very fast.

0:08:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:54 Thomas: Meanwhile, he probably calls Christine Brovey. Hey, can you put together an entire thing, like, he just, that's why, like, we we played in the video last episode, like, being like, "Yeah, you need" he moves, you know, he has an idea and moves on, which, hey, hey, I sympathize with, but she's like, yeah, he needs people who, you know, like, in so many words, is like, who will, you know, do the stuff that he claims he'll do a little bit while he moves on to the next fucking thing.

0:08:57 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Huh. Uh huh. Yeah. The person that was emailing with, the you university, essentially, they were emailing with Jeff Sandifer, the billionaire oil guy. They said, you know, I have some concerns with how vague some of the material is and what to expect here. So, like, I'm having a hard time committing.

0:09:35 Thomas: Well, now in fairness, though, if that guy already had some sort of MBA program before, couldn't he just, like, he's like, "All right, I got the curriculum, but add in the fucking lobster bullshit from Jordan Peterson, bam, done." Oh, okay, god,

0:09:47 Lydia: But that's not how it was presented on the website at all. So it like it was it Was vague, like people were having a heart attack. So I think it's a good idea to figuring it out. I think to your point in the previous episode, it wasn't clear what Peterson's involvement would be in the actual program, so this person wanted clarification, you know, like, is this something where, you know, Jordan Peterson will be, um, present for any of it, or is it just his name, like, is that level of involvement and wanting more information there, and Sandifer ended up writing back, um, essentially, and part of it says, "I applaud your skepticism. It's a valuable trait. However, it doesn't sound as if this is the right opportunity for you."

0:10:32 Thomas: This is such a tack, this is a a manipulation tactic, this happens a lot in religion, I think, too. Hey, I, yeah, it's great to be skeptical, kind of thing, but, like, also, no, don't be skeptical, because this is this is basically saying it's an ultimatum, yeah, oh, it's good that you're skeptical, however, see you later, and then you're either the person leaves or they're like, oh, okay, never mind, not for fuck's sake, we'll touch touch base on... That's

0:10:41 Lydia: And Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now you have to lose out. Yeah? Then he goes on to say, in very corporate speak, I think you'll appreciate this. The work we'll be doing together requires a tolerance for ambiguity and will be messy. A terrific team and an extraordinary group coming to Austin, but it's a pioneering bunch. We don't know many of the answers because emergent growth is unpredictable and we'll be co-creating the future as we go.

0:11:19 Thomas: But one thing's very clear. You will still be paying tens of thousands of dollars. That part, that's not ambiguous.

0:11:24 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you're right. It was essentially an ultimatum. It's feeding off of the cult of personality to try and, you know, get people to sign up without answering legitimate questions. Do want want to give some credit to Luke Rinaldi out of Toronto Life. He put together a great article in March of 2021 detailing a lot of this stuff. And he actually followed up with some graduates of the program, two fellows. One of them was from the inaugural class in 2019, the one that had 2,500 people apply for the 50 slots and 37 left. And then the other one was from the second cohort, which was cut short by So they never got to do any in -person classes. And then they ended up disbanding the program altogether. But both of them said to Rinaldi that Peterson had no direct involvement in the program, no face-to-face time over Zoom or the like,

0:11:29 Thomas: Yeah. Oh my God. It's

0:12:22 Lydia: Nothing, nothing.

0:12:22 Thomas: Trump University. It really is. It is. What a grift.

0:12:24 Lydia: Yeah. But that the fellows briefly beta tested educational projects related to his online institution. So he basically used them for his research. Yeah. And then in 2019, thereafter, Hardin -Simmons cut funding to Acton. Lost its accreditation, but they, you know, framed it in the way of like, we don't need accreditation because what we're doing is beyond what these accrediting entities would do.

0:12:51 Lydia: Yeah, and then they set up shop in In Madrid, Spain. And they are operating there now.

0:12:35 Thomas: Wow. Yeah, we didn't want that accreditation anyway. Of course, the business capital of the world.

0:12:59 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, Sandifer is not out there. But Acton yeah, School of Business is out there now and they are continuing to get folks to sign up for their program. No Peterson Fellowship, though, that has officially been suspended, I guess, is what they would say.

0:13:10 Thomas: Amazing. And it also never really happened like at all.

0:13:15 Lydia: It never really happened.

0:13:16 Thomas: That is wow.

0:13:18 Lydia: Yeah yeah after Acton sort of dissolved, the right, program did not continue unless you're out in Spain. And if you're Peterson, you're no longer affiliated with it. And arguably, you may never have been actually affiliated with It, with the exception of putting your name to It. You know, Jordan Peterson, one of his goals has always been to start his own college, his own university, and he got another opportunity to do that. He launched in collaboration with his daughter, Michaela Peterson.

0:13:32 Thomas: Yeah. God.

0:13:53 Lydia: I don't think she's come.

0:13:53 Thomas: We haven't even talked about her.

0:13:54 Lydia: Yeah, she hasn't come up at all, surprisingly yet, but we're going to talk about her a bit today. They launched Peterson Academy. And I'm going to go ahead and put launched in quotes because it still doesn't exist. It of does, but it has not officially started. Have been talking about it launching with dates for a bit of time now. We'll go over and listen to Fox News towards the end of a segment with Brett Baer, where Jordan Peterson speaks what is to come with Peterson Academy.

0:13:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:31 Thomas: Weird that it's on Fox News, I don't I don't t get why that would be, I

0:14:32 Lydia: Oh, yeah. I wonder why.

0:14:35 Clip: School, you and your daughter working together? Yeah, which we know. And how do we get it? Well, we've got about 30 courses recorded so far in a studio in Miami, um, they're, they look very good, they're very professionally produced. We're trying to find the best lectures in the world, so if you think you're a good lecturer and you want to participate, give that some thought, that's Peterson Academy. We hope we'll be ready to roll in November. We want to make sure that we have the best lectures that we can possibly provide on the most germane topics, and then we're going to ally that with a very stringent testing and accrediting system, so that if you are a graduate of this particular institution, the people who hire you will know that you learned what you were aiming at learning, and that you did the proper work, and that's extraordinarily important, because employers need to know that they absolutely, uh, Dr. Jordan Peterson, I know you had

0:15:30 Thomas: That's so good. Imagine being such an arrogant asshole that you're like, people keep saying I'm wrong, so I'm going to leave university and start my own. It's going to be in my name. It's gonna be stuff I think is right. Everyone should learn it. And we're going to, like, test people on what if they've learned the stuff I feel like is right for them. I think it's just, I can't imagine he means they're actually getting accredited. Like, right? I mean, there's no way.

0:15:41 Lydia: Yeah? Yeah. Pin in that. We'll get there. But first, you know, he had mentioned we're hoping to launch in November. That was November 2023. Not November 2024. This was back in October that he was talking about this.

0:15:55 Thomas: Yeah.

0:16:08 Thomas: Oh, wow. I just assumed he meant November.

0:16:09 Lydia: Yeah. No. So that date came and went. No Peterson Academy is available online yet. Campus Reform reported on this as well at the time in October, saying, you know, the Peterson Academy coming November 2023. they reported again in January 2024, and they said Peterson Academy Coming February 2024. Zero acknowledgement Anywhere that like they previously had reported that it was coming out before. Notice how also Peterson said in that interview, we have 30 courses already already filmed and everything. They're looking great. What a course is for Peterson Academy is a two to three hour lecture.

0:16:16 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:16:54 Thomas: Yeah. He meant like 30 class sessions, kind of.

0:16:57 Lydia: It. Yes. But that is all that counts as like the credit. Like you would combine like two of those equals a credit.

0:17:02 Thomas: Yeah, so this is more like PragerU, right?

0:17:06 Lydia: Yes. It Yes, absolutely is.

0:17:07 Thomas: He just wants his own version of that.

0:17:09 Lydia: Yeah. February 2024, as you can imagine, we're not in February anymore. Date has come in past and no Peterson Academy still. Still. And now, everywhere where you look, Academy's Twitter, the website itself, it all now says coming soon. There is no longer a date attached to it.

0:17:29 Thomas: Well, I'm sure it'll be soon then. Sounds Sounds like it'll be soon.

0:17:32 Lydia: Yeah, any day now. You correct in that, yes, they have filmed a number of these courses. That I can confirm in plenty of different places. He has pictures and stuff folks of lecturing. There are some of the professors and some of them are professors, you know, like tweeting that they participated in this and trying to get people excited for it. Some the lecturers include Heather Hying and Brett Weinstein.

0:18:00 Thomas: Yeah, Of course, lectures in the world is why De

0:18:00 Lydia: Yep. Yeah. Jordan Peterson, Stephen Hicks. And then through reporting done by DeSmog by looking at. Yeah, They're like a climate, a climate change activist organization, and Yeah, and they're very concerned by, like, the climate positions of a lot of the guest professors that they're seeing here, and, like, a whole article regarding Peterson Academy specifically, and they said, you know, other people that, from our research using Internet Archive. Right. Way back and looking at audience application forms, because they have, like, a like a studio audience, and you're

0:18:10 Thomas: -Smog Oh, Okay, he is really anti-climate stuff. Yeah, Huh. Oh,

0:18:43 Lydia: Responsible for getting to Miami yourself, like, you're.

0:18:46 Thomas: For, for these lectures?

0:18:47 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, so it's not just like the person right that you're looking at you're You're looking at them teaching, in quotes, a room full of people in this like it's very white room, very modern looking. It's interesting. But they also cited that Michael Shermer is doing a about skepticism, I think. Hanania is there. Doyle, a.k.a. Titania McGrath, is doing an Shakespeare course. Course. Jordan Peterson was like really upset about this reporting. He De Smog had posted this on Twitter and Jordan Peterson.

0:18:47 Thomas: Oh, Wow. Yeah. Uh, -huh. Oh, My god, posted What exactly? Oh,

0:19:25 Lydia: They said over a dozen instructors associated with Peterson Academy created by

0:19:29 Thomas: They did? That, that rundown that you just kind of gave us

0:19:30 Lydia: Yeah conservative influencer. Yeah. Disputed the existence of a climate emergency or opposed solutions. Here's the article. Peterson Academy, which I think is just Jordan Peterson, but I guess theoretically it could also be Michaela. I don't know. They responded, we haven't released our lineup of professors, so there's absolutely no way you could know that. Except they cite all their sources.

0:19:32 Thomas: Right. Yeah, Yeah,

0:19:54 Lydia: It's literally from the Peterson Academy website.

0:19:54 Thomas: Like just their announcements kind of thing. Oh, My

0:19:58 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. It is like fill out an audience application. The audience member will know what course they're applying to be, you know, in the audience for. Yeah.

0:20:00 Thomas: God, Oh, I see what you're saying. I didn't quite. Okay, so you made it sound like they could see who to applied be in the audience, so the form tells you, like, I want to go watch this person, there's

0:20:08 Lydia: No, No, so It says, like, upcoming courses, and it lists the name and the dates. Yeah,

0:20:20 Thomas: No, possible Way, way that they could know that. Get out of my head. DeSmog, are you watching me? God, he's such a paranoid idiot.

0:20:23 Lydia: No, possible way. Yeah, incredible. Um, Let's, of the other things that d smog had had put in there, they did a like a little interview with someone named Tanner Mearly's, an associate professor at Ontario Tech University, is a member of the Center on Hate, Bias and Extremism organization. And his opinion is that the school, the virtual school will become a Fox News model of education. And, in quotes, "Time will tell, but I fear Jordan Academy will become misinformation packaged as as educational enlightenment and sold to unwitting students by a conservative media company that's not a real university." Ouch.

0:20:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:13 Thomas: Was going to say, I mean, is it University of Austin, the name of the stupid fake one they're doing? This That one makes that look like Harvard. I mean that one, they may actually get accredited in some way, or they They already did a little bit, I think. I can't remember. But like, this is like several steps down from that bullshit.

0:21:16 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So funny that you mentioned University of Austin because the Financial Times Times did a story back at the end of October last year, October 2023, looking into all of these various, you independent, I guess, universities and colleges that are being created and the funding behind them. So I know, actually, if you remember this, but University of Austin is right now it's being housed in a building owned by Harlan Crowe. Yeah, a big money source behind University of Austin. He's, you know, very open about it and stuff like he thinks it's very exciting. Of course, it's all connected.

0:21:59 Thomas: Wow. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:22:10 Lydia: But of the other sources of funding for University of Austin and other schools like that is Sir Paul Marshall, who is a hedge fund manager out of Britain. Is also known as, you know, the old ex banjo player from Mumford and Sons, Winston Marshall. That's his dad. Yeah, that's his Dad. God.

0:22:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. No way. So, he do again? So, is that asshole a Nepo baby, essentially?

0:22:36 Lydia: So like he went and actually lectured again. I'm using quotes all the time with my little air quotes. He lectured at University of Austin.

0:22:45 Thomas: Oh. What's his... I guess I might have missed it. What's this thing? What is he? What is it?

0:22:45 Lydia: Yeah. Sorry, Paul Marshall or his son.

0:22:51 Thomas: The Paul Marshall.

0:22:52 Lydia: Oh, Paul Marshal. No. So he he just sends his money to all these places.

0:22:56 Thomas: So, yeah. Yeah. But how does he have money? Is he?

0:22:56 Lydia: Um. He is through a hedge fund manager and has like a huge amount through that, but he also is the owner of Unheard, yeah. Yeah. And he's like trying to buy, I think, the Verge, and there's... there's so much, like, he has so much money and he snided which kills me, yeah. Um, so there... there was like a dinner that happened December 2021 that had like all of these people there. Jordan Peterson was also there, and he met Paul Marshall that night. And Peterson and Michaela Peterson are not disclosing their funding for Peterson Academy.

0:23:07 Thomas: Oh, really? Oh wow. God.

0:23:38 Thomas: Why would they? They're just doing a YouTube channel. That's all it is. It's a YouTube. You're not doing a real thing.

0:23:43 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she's come out and said that three million dollars of the seed money is from her and her dad, basically. But beyond that, aren't they disclosing where financial is coming from. So there there are thoughts that Paul Marshall is, you know, potentially involved in this as well. And you just kind of see the network that we've talked about with the media system. And, you know, like kind of it's been piecemeal that network across existing institutions and now sort of like coalescing into these like independent college educational institutions.

0:24:08 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I mean, it really is a small group of people in reality and they try to astroturf by the fact that like it's reactionary politics. It's helping, you taxes low and protect entrenched power and so entrenched power has a lot of money and they're like, yeah, I'll fund a bunch of bullshit to make this happen and so it's the same three people who have millions or billions of dollars and you know I will say this is one reason why I like I do think what I covered in that like type thing was fraudulent, but it's why it's like I don't even know how much it matters because this guy has access to so much money.

0:24:57 Thomas: Like Jordan Peterson has access to tons and tons of money. I'm sure he was already well off, but honestly, don't know what happened with the, with GoFundMe campaign exactly. And maybe back then he wasn't as well off. Um, like now he, he can just do whatever he wants. He has so much. So much money, oh

0:24:32 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Mm he really, really does. Um, Academy is a for-profit institution, of course, um, so the way that they've set this up, this is according to Michaela Peterson in an interview, um, professors get a speaking fee and then they will receive a share of the revenue that is based on on the students that are attracted to their course.

0:25:29 Thomas: Wow. Oh, like that course in particular. So it's like a performance med thing. Yeah. Interesting.

0:25:32 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's kind of interesting. The other piece that I forgot to mention. So Sir Paul Marshall is obviously incredibly religious. Incredibly, incredibly, incredibly religious, as is Jordan Peterson, as as, you know, all these people.

0:25:46 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah. Watched that asshole, his the banjo player. I watched something of his, I forget why. I don't remember what it was researched for, but like, yeah, he's done this whole like, Yeah, I'm so glad I can speak out now speak the truth. Yeah, I'm just I've just been the lowly famous son of a billionaire who's a knight. You know, it's just like so pathetic.

0:26:05 Thomas: I had no idea. I didn't know who he was. Other than being the banjob player is hilarious to me that he's a fucking hedge fund nepo baby. Obviously, he would be.

0:25:58 Lydia: Yes. Yes. Yeah yeah.

0:26:14 Lydia: Yeah I know it's crazy. One of the quotes that he did for this lecture with the University of Austin students, Winston Marshall, the ex banjo player, he said, It wasn't just one tweet that got me in trouble. It was 10 years of being in an industry where saying the wrong thing will get you in trouble, I can actually speak freely now. Wow.

0:26:34 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, God.

0:26:36 Lydia: And Kathleen Stock spoke after him and she's, you know, transphobe out England. And she opened up her lecture by saying, I've had some tough gigs in my time, but I've never literally followed a rock star.

0:26:37 Thomas: Crybaby. Right.

0:26:53 Thomas: Wow.

0:26:54 Lydia: Amazing. Amazing. Peterson Academy, you had asked, hey, you did they get accreditation? And, you know, like, are they accredited? What's going on there?

0:27:02 Thomas: No, there's no... I did not ask that. They're definitely not getting accredited. At least not anytime soon.

0:27:09 Lydia: Yeah. Why don't we I'm going to send you a little link so we can kind of hear the pitch from Michaela and Jordan themselves.

0:27:18 Clip: It would be funny if we could blow apart the university system a little bit because it's broken because of what it did to you. Like, you were alienated out of your job, basically. You'll be damn fortunate if we can provide you with a list of people who've graduated, and if you had any sense you'll employ them preferentially because we did the rigorous screening work. I know how to do the rigorous screen work because I studied that for like 25 years. A degree from our university will signify high level conscientiousness and general cognitive ability, and those are very valuable for any employer with a clue. So I think we can just skip the adaptation process and go right to the employers. We are planning a soft launch in November and we might be able to change the education system. That's funny, it's weird. Up yours, woke moralists, we'll see who cancels who. Exactly, that's sort of funny. That kind of funny, yeah. That kind

0:27:56 Thomas: Oh,

0:27:57 Lydia: Yeah.

0:28:09 Thomas: God. Wait, t know. So, we don' d know if that's their music or if somebody else added that, but it's really loud and annoying and sucks what

0:28:13 Lydia: We apologize. Yeah. So basically, they have decided that they're not going to pursue accreditation because they accreditation agencies are taken by the same problems as the universities.

0:28:19 Thomas: A joke yeah oh they're in on it too, oh no, wouldn't you know it

0:28:28 Lydia: Yeah? Yeah. And the employers of their students will become the de facto accreditors because, you know, they're going to be the ones that show that.

0:28:30 Thomas: Yeah I'm gonna see that Peterson Academy degree and they'll be like, I need that person on my team god it's such a joke

0:28:41 Lydia: So crazy. High level conscientiousness and general cognitive ability. General.

0:28:49 Thomas: Yeah, like, again, it goes to his complete misunderstanding of fucking psychology apparently like that's what it's going to be. If you, if you graduate or if you go here, whatever, whichever, that's, that's really going to be valuable to employers, is knowing that that has like a slight correlation in his mind with some big five personality trait rather than just like, are you a good worker, did you get good grades, are you, you know, like it's so stupid I

0:28:56 Lydia: Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hm. I know. I know. Peterson Academy is one of one of Jordan Peterson's companies. He has several. Role. We've talked a little bit about self -authoring, right? And that's one bit of his empire. Such a weird situation that Toronto Life ran a story about his entire business dealings, basically saying that he has this self -authoring suite and things kind of grew from that. And so I started looking into, you know, how are all of these things connected? These things registered? Are they registered? Who's on the list of directors? All of those things, right? So I started with the self -authoring, figuring out the company that that was behind self -authoring. That's the company he's

0:29:22 Thomas: Bet, yeah

0:30:07 Lydia: Owned the longest.

0:30:08 Thomas: And that's kind of what launched this because I, again, Again, I strongly believe that he diverted all that funding from the fundraiser into that under the, like, this is, again, I don't have rock solid proof, but it's the explanation that makes the most sense. So I really was trying to ask you at first, I was like, so who makes money from that? Cause like, I don't know. Yeah.

0:30:25 Lydia: No.

0:30:25 Thomas: I was wondering if like, maybe Brophy was in on the business in some way and it doesn't seem like she's in on ownership or anything. Right.

0:30:32 Lydia: So the self -authoring program or suite is through a company called ExamCorp Incorporated. And this incorporated October 31st, 1996 as Executive Acumen Measurement Corporation and then changed its name in 2000, just four years later, to ExamCorp Inc. Self -authoring is an entity under that company. It in Florida by Robert Peel and Jordan Peterson. So Robert Pele is one of the individuals that is associated with self -authorizing. He's one of three white guys you mentioned. Officers that are ever listed on any of their annual statements Ever since they were first incorporated in 1996 through now are Robert Peel and Jordan Peterson. That's it. Robert Pele is the registered agent as well. What is so confusing to me is the register address is in Deerfield Beach, Florida. It appears to be Robert Peel's house, three bedrooms, three baths, 2 ,700 square feet, valued at $1.3 million. And what is confusing to me is Robert Pele is a professor at McGill University. He was Jordan Peterson's graduate supervisor.

0:31:35 Thomas: Is it listed or? Oh, weird.

0:31:50 Lydia: Very weird. The other white guy that's associated with self -authoring who's not on any of this documentation, but is part of the company, is a that Jordan Peterson had when he taught at Harvard. It's the three of them. And then I was watching a video of him interviewing the two of them and Robert Peel, by the way, is like 86 years old. He's very old. He studied alcohol and alcoholism and aggression. And that's kind of how they got connected. But Jordan Peterson states in that video that it's always been the three of them. And then recently they hired a customer service person. So that's it. Those are the only people that get money from self-authoring, um, authoring, and Exam Corp has remained kind of like a separate entity from everything else, which is also kind of interesting, and

0:32:29 Thomas: Wow. Wow.

0:32:41 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, that's kind of normal practice for businesses. You do want to have new entities for everything.

0:32:45 Lydia: Yes. However, recently there was, uh, amalgamation, um, that was, that was done to basically like house everything else under one parent company. So Luminant Enterprises Limited, on August 1st, 2022, it was amalgamated with Luminate Universal Education Systems Limited, Lumenat Psychological Services Limited, Lumint Media Incorporated, Lumanat Turing Incorporated, Luminant Holdings and Services Limited. So all of these separate entities ended up being amalgamated under this one umbrella company. This where things got very weird for me, because then I was looking into that and I was like, OK, I can see, you know, Jordan Peterson listed here. And then I see Michaela Peterson listed as an officer as well. She was named CEO, by the way, of Luminant Productions.

0:33:23 Thomas: Hmm.

0:33:44 Thomas: Is that the whole? No, that is not the whole shebang. Yeah, gotcha.

0:33:47 Lydia: No. So I think she was CEO of Luminant Enterprises Incorporated, which is one of the sub companies of the limited Canadian corporation.

0:33:58 Thomas: Interesting.

0:33:58 Lydia: Then was looking at all the companies that were affiliated with Luminant Enterprises Limited, one of them is Luminate Productions Florida Incorporate, which piqued my interest because I was like, okay Peterson Academy, they're filming out of Miami, but Peterson lives in Toronto. I wasn't sure where Michaela Peterson was living at the time necessarily. So I was like, okay, well, maybe, you know, I know she's affiliated with it. Maybe that's why it says, you Know, Florida, let me look into this company a little bit more. The people that are named as officers are Jordan Peterson and Michaela Peterson. It was incorporated June 26, 2023. But then it was classified as a branch of a company.

0:34:10 Thomas: Hmm,

0:34:40 Lydia: And I was like, what? And it said it was a branch of a Wyoming company. And I was like what?

0:34:39 Thomas: That s weird. Branch.

0:34:47 Lydia: And the reason why is because they used and I don't know why and this isn't necessarily nefarious in itself. Used a registered agent company called Registered Agents Incorporated. And the is because they used a branch of the original Wyoming Registered Agency Inc. This is a company that has locations all over.

0:34:47 Thomas: Wow. Okay. Oh, Right. But you don't have to do that, okay? So, in case anyone doesn't know, you, a registered agent, is no big deal. That's like, because the way that, um, paperwork often works is like, you're, you have to register and put your, like, information up and that'll go on the Secretary of State website. Plenty of people don't want their information out there, or they just don't

0:35:30 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, like how I just read Robert Peel's home information.

0:35:37 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah or they, you know, it's like, um, number of reasons. It's the same with websites, actually, where you, like, register a thing, and then you can, like, yeah. So that's totally normal. However, what's not normal is having to register it as a branch of whatever the registered agent company is. That's, I don't know what that is, I have no idea yeah

0:35:39 Lydia: Yeah privacy and Yeah.

0:35:57 Lydia: So what led me down a crazy rabbit hole that basically had me stepping back to be like, why did they do this? Because often when you're using a registered agent, yes, there's like the anonymity that you want from the address. A lot of times people will use it so they don't have to list themselves on directors or anything like that. But Jordan Peterson and Michaela Peterson continue to do so. Could have gone to.

0:36:07 Thomas: Yeah well no, you still have to list yourself, so you'd still have to lift the officers, yeah huh

0:36:27 Lydia: So here's the thing. Registered Agents Incorporated is sketchy AF because it was started by a man named Dan Keene. He incorporated Registered Agents Incorporated back in 2010. No one really knows who this guy is. There was a wired investigation that came out March 4th this year. There's like it's freaking crazy. He is an enigma. He doesn't trust the system at all. After a certain period of time, July 29th, 2015, they changed from Registered Agents Incorporated, changed from Dan Keene as the president and the registered agent to a guy named Bill Hover. And they looked into that. And there was a biography on the Registered Agents Inc. website, an archive version. And it says Bill grew up in Wyoming. He went to, you know, Cal Berkeley in the 70s, but then had to withdraw and go back to Wyoming for a family emergency, yada, yadda, yedda. This person's not real.

0:36:44 Thomas: Oh really

0:37:27 Lydia: It's completely fake. That is a fake person, a fake story, and Dan Keane wanted his name off of all of this stuff. Employees spoke with Wired and said they used fake names all the time. Dan Keane encouraged them to do it because he thinks that people are out to get him or out to to get to the company, and you, insane to me, yeah yeah it's

0:37:28 Thomas: Huh and This is just the registered agent company. Right. Whatever that is. We don't really know fully that. Yeah, sure.

0:37:58 Lydia: So it's the registered agent company, and, and I guess where I'm coming from is, like, this is a company where, like, I just googled, and I found all of these things from, like, local journalism in Wyoming saying another scam leading to 30 North Gould Street, or whatever it is, because this registered agents branch, this one in particular, is so successful because Wyoming has, like, really lax tax laws and stuff.

And even though it is a felony to file a false document in Wyoming, state, two years in prison, $2,000 fine, and you have former employees, like, saying that they are doing this, that this company is doing this, no one's really, you, pursuing that or anything.

And the poor, like, Wyoming state officials will get calls, like, um, boards and things like that, they'll get phone calls from people who are like, I paid for this thing and I never received services, or, you know, I'm trying to get a hold of the company I'm supposed to be, you, working with for whatever thing, and they're not answering my calls. And it, like, and turns always like, what's the address? And they say 30 North Gould, they're like, not again.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of companies are registered through this one branch of Registered Agents Incorporated. And I was, like, looking up, man, it was just, like, this crazy, like, rabbit hole, of it was honestly like a black hole more likely, um, of the things I was interested in is, like, well, have they been involved in lawsuits, I keep seeing, like, scams affiliated

0:39:33 Thomas: Yeah. You would think someone sued him. The

0:39:34 Lydia: With them yeah and so, like, I was looking through names, and, um, lawsuit popped up, and I opened it, and I was like, what, what is this? Because it's a lawsuit filed by someone who's in prison. So it was, you know, on, like, lined paper, because they were, you know, representing themselves and had to do, like, all the legal stuff themselves. And it named the three individuals, like, the legal counsel, and, like, the people who are affiliated with Registered Agents Incorporated, like, their business documents. And he filed suit against them, but they were able to get themselves removed from it because they said, oh, no, his problem is with, you know, this company.

0:40:15 Lydia: And we're not affiliated with that company. We just were the registered agent.

0:40:14 Thomas: Company. Yeah right. Well, is it a LLC or is it? Yeah, I mean, that's technically.

0:40:20 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, it was an LLC. We'll see.

0:40:22 Thomas: Yeah like kind of the purpose of that.

0:40:24 Lydia: Yeah. But I mean, I share this this with patrons because it's like, it's not related to Jordan Peterson, but it is just really sad. And basically it's someone who started a company with a couple of guys and then he ended up going to jail, and they stole it from him while he was in jail and like changed things and stuff because they had access to certain things. And really sad. I might share it just because it's an interesting thing. But yeah, it's just been so interesting. There's been like no repercussions. This is something that even the United States government is very well aware of, that is a problem here with registered agents and the lack of regulation around this industry. Had a hearing back in 2006 because they, a very conservative sort of standpoint, this impedes law enforcement. If you don't know the company that like you are supposed to be serving, you don't have an address to go serve them. They had like Patriot Act concerns, and they specifically called out in the hearing Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada. You lax rules there.

0:40:40 Thomas: Wow.

0:41:27 Thomas: Yeah most

0:41:27 Lydia: Nothing's changed, though.

0:41:29 Thomas: All corporations are formed in Delaware just

0:41:30 Lydia: Yeah. Wyoming and Nebraska are able to have nominee officers, which is something that I don't think exists in Delaware. So there's like some benefit to that specific to those states. That use registered agents incorporated or other, you firms like that are able to evade accountability. There has been a lot of harm that's been done. And like I said, independent journalism in Wyoming, specifically the Sheridan Press, is covering a lot lot of this because it's it's just really, it's really sad. Yeah.

0:42:01 Thomas: Do we can't really tell why Peterson use them. I mean, he definitely did, though, right? So we don't know if there's a connection. Maybe it is just they saw an somewhere, or maybe if they specifically want to be protected against kind some repercussions by using them.

0:42:05 Lydia: Yeah. They definitely Did. I Mean, perhaps, but I'm able to find their addresses like everywhere else. So Peterson lists his address for other things, and Tammy, his wife, lists her address for her companies, like so I Can see. Yeah. Tammy, oh, a recent Catholic, you know, she just converted over Easter weekend, yeah. Yeah, you know, where they live, I can see that. Michaela Peterson, too, you know, she she's pretty on line.

0:42:22 Thomas: Yeah. Tammy. Oh, God.

0:42:46 Thomas: One, two, three, Meat Fart Street.

0:42:49 Lydia: Well, like they just moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. Like, I know that, you Know, like all these things.

0:42:52 Thomas: Beef Beef Gas Gas Avenue. Just eat meat. It must be disgusting.

0:42:57 Lydia: They just eat meat.

0:42:58 Thomas: It must be absolutely disgusting, I'm just saying.

0:42:58 Lydia: Yeah. Oh, she said on a podcast, she Said sometimes she has soup. But what her soup is, is just like pulverized steak. Yeah. Yeah, disgusting.

0:43:03 Thomas: Meat soup. Yeah. That is so gross.

0:43:10 Lydia: They are happy with the service that they are receiving via using registered agents rather than using, you know, Jordan Peterson's friend, Robert Peel, who is already serving.

0:43:18 Thomas: I mean, you could just have an attorney

0:43:19 Lydia: Serving?

0:43:20 Thomas: Do it too. Like it's kind of a weird thing.

0:43:20 Lydia: Yeah. It's very weird that of the companies, one of like the sub companies was incorporated December 28th, 2023. And this is one of the versions of Luminant Enterprises Incorporated. This one, again, was out of Wyoming. And I was like, OK, just another one through the the Registered Agents Incorporated, but they used something called CAPC Services, which is a registered agent boutique firm for families with a lot of money, basically. Like a luxury registered agent firm. Families with high net worth, that's what they specialize in. Can't find anything else really about them anywhere, including anybody who's affiliated with it. But this real problem. It popped up a lot during the Pandora Papers investigation. Yeah, because the other people who use registered agents and registered agents incorporated are foreign governments and nefarious actors from other countries who are trying to, you some money around and do some money laundering and evade taxes for you know their countries and yeah, it's just felt so sketchy to me, um.

0:44:20 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, what are the odds? But yeah,

0:44:34 Lydia: So weird, so weird, um, like I said, you know, there's... there's nothing like illegal about it, um.

0:44:41 Thomas: And it's not, it's no, I guess, proof of anything nefarious that Peterson is doing by using these people, right? Just to clarify. It's just weird.

0:44:47 Lydia: No, no. It's just it just feels shady and

0:44:50 Thomas: Another level of sketch just

0:44:51 Lydia: Weird. Yeah. Especially because, like I said from the beginning, you know, his other entity that's not amalgamated with this stuff, the Exam Corp Incorporated, that you has one of his co -founders of self -authoring acting as the registered agent, even though I can't figure out why he still teaches at McGill, apparently, too, like according to that. So how is he teaching at McGILL in Canada, but then also living? I don't know. I'm trying to figure this out to this 85, 86 year old man.

0:45:21 Thomas: Has a house somewhere Yeah, not

0:45:23 Lydia: Yeah, you know, he has been on time filing his annual statements every year, he's done a very good job.

0:45:28 Thomas: Easy to do Yeah.

0:45:29 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. That's

0:45:30 Thomas: Oh, yeah, and it could be another thing where again, once you get in this ecosystem of like religious conservative reactionary, whatever, and they, they know a guy and they know it's like, you know, who knows, it could just be like some connection, it could, but like, that's a, that's small ecosystem of paranoid, paranoid reactionaries. And, you know, like that could be why he ends up kind of weirdly doing business with some of these entities that like it's not necessarily nefarious, but it's like, all right, man, this is just a weird thing.

0:45:42 Lydia: Yeah. Oh, I did have one other thing that I've, I've to mention, so Registered Agents Incorporated, um, are starting to branch out, so not only are they serving as a registered agent around the country for whoever will send them stuff and they never verify anything by the way. They just take people's words for it. Email addresses might be fake. They use fake names all the time. I'll the Wired investigation in the show notes, too, because I think there's some really interesting there. The other thing that they've recently dipped their toes in is they acquired a web host. Do you know which web host it might be? It's Epic.

0:46:18 Thomas: Hmm. Oh, God, it's nothing like GoDaddy or something. Epic. I don't know

0:46:42 Lydia: It's the far right's web host because they don't care if you're a Nazi. They don't care if you're you know crazy extremist Well, but it was like all the web hosting that refused to, um, know, have the websites for all the QAnon stuff or websites harassing transgender people. Epic Gladly welcomes them. Registered Agents Incorporated is the owner now of Epic for web hosting.

0:46:42 Thomas: What Epic is. Oh, come on. Yeah. I mean, most web hosts don't. But, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah, man, they're just like, we're in the market for any sketch ass business. We're looking to acquire a portfolio of sketchy as shit stuff.

0:47:13 Lydia: Yeah. It's so crazy.

0:47:18 Thomas: Weird. Soon they're like, We need an index on in the stock market, like the sketchy, you know, you got the NASDAQ, you get your Dow. I want just like the Sketch industry. I want to see how it's going.

0:47:19 Lydia: So crazy, man.

0:47:30 Lydia: I just like I can't believe this. Like it's just so freaking weird. And I not Jordan Peterson, obviously, and I'm not Michaela Peterson. I don't eat meat. We have the exact opposite diets.

0:47:35 Thomas: Weird. Yeah.

0:47:43 Lydia: I feel I feel like if I were starting a business, I would kind of care about like the other businesses that are affiliated with my business, even if it's just like a registered agent. I don't know. I just I like it. I DON'T like So,

0:47:59 Thomas: I mean, a lot of people just have somebody handle stuff like that. Who knows? You know, a lawyer could be handling it and the lawyer could be some connection they had that's a right wing freak or like a Mormon, you know, anti -government, but who knows?

0:48:10 Lydia: Or Sir Paul Marshall trying to evade his majesty's tax burden. Can I keep saying her majesty? Can I just? I know you don't care. Some of our listeners will.

0:48:12 Thomas: Yeah. God. Oh boy. I don't care. Literally tune out whatever that is. Right. Well, yeah, like I said, I mean, we're not going to be done with Jordan Peterson, obviously, but I think that'll kind of conclude this bit. Although we could get back to the rap song we started this with. Maybe I will.

0:48:38 Lydia: I think we've got to.

0:48:39 Thomas: We'll see. That's kind of a different topic. But what if there's another claim like three and a half minutes in that we have to research for a month? What will we do then?

0:48:39 Lydia: Yeah. Oh, my God.

0:48:46 Thomas: Two months. I don't know.

0:48:47 Lydia: I don't know. Go to bed.

0:48:53 Thomas: All right. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. I do still intend to get that Ben Shapiro bonus out. I did a couple sessions on it and it just wasn't feeling right. Kind re -examine that. It's, you know, quality control. Troll. It's like, I don't want to give you a thing that sucks. So I need to do another round of kind of research to fill that out. We'll, we'll have that up for you. And it's fun. And there's so much there, comedy never stops. Like there's, there's just so much to make fun of when it comes to these people.

It'S just, I also could take out a full -time job, just debunking these stupid debates he's doing. Like even like Both sides too. Cause like I watched the Destiny Jordan Peterson debate just because it seemed like maybe they were touching on stuff like this. Actually, I saw a clip from it that someone was making fun of it and said, Jordan Peterson was going to do a study to figure out whether or not Nazis were right wing, but then he didn't end up doing it. And I was like, oh, is that going to be related to this mystery funding?

And it kind of is because it's yet another thing Peterson says he was going to study, but like couldn't you know because of whatever, his dog ate his funding or something, and the study was he wants to finally get to the bottom of whether or not Nazis were left or right wing.

He's, his methodology he proposed, he's going to write down like their policies but not put any names to it, you know, like not, and just pull like who tends to agree with them more, right wingers or left wingers. Than today's, it's like, okay, man, I

0:49:12 Lydia: Yeah oh yeah yeah

0:50:21 Thomas: Don't think their policy positions vis-a-vis taxes or zoning laws or something are really going to matter that much. I think the key thing with, you know, being a Nazi is the Nazi part, like all that part. And that's very much right wing. So solve that one for him. Didn't need to get into it.

0:50:21 Lydia: Amazing

0:50:40 Thomas: All right. Well, thanks so much for listening. Patreon.com slash where there's woke. If you'd like to support the show and get bonus stuff and skip the ads and we'll see you folks next time.

0:50:39 Lydia: Yeah oh