Jeremiah “The Bull” Evans: Alpha Conned

August 25, 2025·42 min·3 clips

Jeremiah Evans was charged with stealing $21 million from 530 investors and sentenced to eight years in prison after a judge read his own texts back to him — texts showing he believed he'd never face consequences.

AlphaCon sounded simple at first. Meg Walter expected a male-focused business conference in Salt Lake City: maybe boring, maybe a little toxic, but at least practical. It turned out messier than that. The panels gave her little business advice, and some speakers seemed unclear on what the event was supposed to deliver. Meg tweeted from the room, and direct quotes from the panels caught attention online fast enough to make a modest assignment feel much less modest. She almost skipped day two. Instead, she came back with her notebook and was soon recognized by someone tied to AlphaCon. The awkward question stayed in the air. What was AlphaCon, besides a masculine poster and a hazy promise of better business? The marketing practically handed people the joke: crossed arms, hard faces, a name begging to be mocked. Meg saw the comedy, of course. The episode is sharper because it does not stop there. Easy mockery would miss why a room like this could exist at all. Held in 2022, the event landed amid online pushback against epidemic-era restrictions and perceived government overreach. Attendance looked thin. The Grand America ballroom could hold around 200 people, yet the room seemed smaller and emptier than planned. Still, the crowd mattered. Mostly men, with a few women there, had gathered around a message that mixed entrepreneurship with becoming more alpha and masculine. The host lets the strangeness sit without rushing it. By the end, AlphaCon feels less like a random spectacle and more like a warning about grievance, branding, and hucksters ready to sell both.

As heard by us

A strange conference story where the reporting itself does most of the work.

Meg Walter's reporting in Salt Lake City follows AlphaCon as a male-focused business conference marked by thin attendance, muddled speakers, and almost no useful advice, so the event feels shaky from the start.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a con story with live-tweeted embarrassment and a hard edge.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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