On a Friday in February 2022, journalist Meg Walter found herself covering one of the strangest events she'd ever witnessed.

It was a male-focused business conference in Salt Lake City called Alphacon.

I thought worst-case scenario, I'd be a little bit bored, and it would be a lot of how

to run a business, you know, how to keep books or how to hire the right people, and there

would like probably be some tingees of toxic masculinity, and I was so wrong.

For one thing, there wasn't much practical business advice to be had.

Some of the speakers seemed confused about exactly what was going on, or what they were expected to say.

Meg tweeted during a few panels, posting direct quotes from

some of the speakers. The tweets immediately got traction online. After the first day, she

wrestled with the idea of skipping the second, but ultimately decided she wanted to see things

through and cover the rest of the conference.

When Meg went back for day two, she expected more of the same.

However, when she arrived, something unexpected happened.

I sit down.

I put my water on the table, pulled out my notebook, and a woman who is part of

AlphaCon approaches me and said, are you Meg? And I said, yes. And she said, we're going to ask you to

leave. Meg was asked to leave. Her only offense was quoting exactly what was being said inside

Alphacon, which organizers apparently decided had crossed a line. It was a sign that Alphacan

wasn't exactly what it advertised to be. And it turned out that the conference's founder,

Jeremiah the Bull Evans, wasn't exactly what he said he was either.

This is the opportunist, an original podcast from Podcast 1.

You're listening to a story told in one episode called Jeremiah the Bull Evans, Alpha Kond.

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