The Jordan Harbinger Show

Danny Rensch went from being weaponized as a chess prodigy by a cult to co-founding Chess.com — detailed on part two of this two-part episode. (Find part one here!)
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1290
What We Discuss with Danny Rensch:
Chess.com grew from a bootstrapped startup — laughed out of investor rooms — into a unicorn by building a chess creator economy and content ecosystem years before the pandemic boom, capturing 99% of chess's explosive growth when The Queen's Gambit and COVID lockdowns sent 400,000 new members flooding in per day.
Catching cheaters in chess is a high-stakes statistical science. Chess.com employs 30 full-time specialists, from research scientists to in-house detectives, who use AI-driven algorithms to detect engine-assisted play, acting only when evidence would hold up in court rather than in the court of public opinion.
The digital revolution in chess has dramatically compressed the learning curve. Kids now grow up playing against Magnus Carlsen and top grandmasters online, producing prodigies like a 12-year-old Argentine dubbed "the Messi of chess" who may break the youngest grandmaster record in history.
Chess.com's public stance against Russia after the Ukraine invasion landed Danny Rensch on a dark web hit list, and years of closing cheaters' accounts have brought direct threats — including one player who tracked his tournament locations and emailed that he'd feel a gun behind his neck.
Danny's most powerful insight is that you can redefine your relationship with your past. Forgiveness isn't rewriting what happened, it's freeing yourself from it, and believing "everything happens for a reason" becomes actionable when you realize you get to choose the reason and reclaim the power over your own story.
And much more...
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Danny Rensch was born into a cult that weaponized chess for prestige. He's here to explain how he broke free on part one of this two-part episode.
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1289
What We Discuss with Danny Rensch:
Cults don't always start with sinister blueprints. The Church of Immortal Consciousness where Danny Rensch was raised grew from self-help roots and communal idealism into full financial control — where members surrendered everything, kids shared bathwater, and the shoe list became a euphemism for "you don't matter enough to get a pair."
The cult weaponized chess the same way the Soviet Union did — as a tool for prestige. Danny was identified as a prodigy, deliberately separated from his mother, and groomed as the collective's golden child. His talent wasn't nurtured for his sake — it was exploited for the cult leader's ego.
By age 13, Danny was living alone, traveling to national chess tournaments with pockets full of cash and no adult supervision. The neglect wasn't just emotional — it was physical. Untreated swimmer's ear became severe infection, leaving him 60% deaf in one ear and 40% in the other.
A drunk, defecting Soviet grandmaster named Igor Ivanov — who once fled the KGB during an emergency plane stop — became Danny's live-in chess coach. Igor had carte blanche to drink and do as he pleased, making him the cult's most functional dysfunction and Danny's unlikely lifeline to the wider chess world.
Despite growing up as a high school dropout in a cult with no formal education, Danny became a successful writer and helped build Chess.com — proof that curiosity, baseline intelligence, and sheer determination can outrun even the most rigged starting hand. Motivated people can learn faster than any institution expects them to.
And much more...
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Tom Hardin | Tipper X: The Man Behind Wall Street's Biggest Sting | The Jordan Harbinger Show
Wired on Wall Street: The Rise and Fall of Tipper X, One of the FBI's Most Prolific Informants by Tom Hardin
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If you want to keep up with the latest topics in tech and AI, and how it all applies to our every day lives, then I recommend checking out The Interface from the BBC. I've become a listener of this great new podcast and I hope you enjoy it too.

Is test prep a lifeline or a scam? Jessica Wynn reveals who's really cashing in on your SAT anxiety here on Skeptical Sunday!
Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by writer and researcher Jessica Wynn!
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1288
On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:
The test prep industry is a multi-billion-dollar machine built on manufactured anxiety — not better education. Companies exploit the fear that a single test determines your entire future, turning parental stress and student panic into a lucrative marketplace where confusion plus fear equals profit.
The same corporations that create standardized tests often sell the prep materials to pass them — a staggering conflict of interest. It's vertical integration at its most cynical: they've engineered both the problem and the solution, and students pay on both ends.
Standardized tests like the SAT don't predict college success as well as high school GPA does, and access to expensive prep widens inequality rather than leveling the playing field. Kids in the top 1% of income have a 1 in 4 shot at elite schools — kids in the bottom 20% have a 1 in 300 chance.
Social media has supercharged test prep anxiety, turning studying into a performative competition. Students spiral comparing their materials and scores to strangers online, and prep companies profit without even advertising — the students do it for them through posts and affiliate links.
You don't need to spend a fortune to prepare well. Start with official practice tests and free resources like Khan Academy, use proven techniques like spaced repetition and the Feynman method, and remember — one good resource used properly beats five expensive ones you never open.
Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [email protected] and let him know!
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Genetic test results were delayed, so you took the abortion pill — then learned the baby was healthy. Now faith and regret collide. It's Feedback Friday!
And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [email protected]. Now let's dive in!
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1287
On This Week's Feedback Friday:
You're 38, happily married, financially stable — and just terminated a pregnancy before learning the genetic test results came back perfectly healthy. Now you're drowning in guilt, questioning your faith, and wondering if you can ever try again. What does forgiveness look like from here?
Your 19-year-old son is a bona fide genius — perfect test scores, weather balloons launched to the stratosphere, obscure research papers devoured for fun — yet college rejected him and social isolation consumes him. How do you help a brilliant mind find its place in a system that doesn't see him?
Your IT branch just got sold to new owners who couldn't care less about your team's culture or your loyal clients. Morale is tanking, policies are clashing, and you're wondering: what if you and your colleagues bought the branch and ran it yourselves? Is this bold move worth the risk?
Recommendation of the Week: Libby — the free library app that lets you borrow ebooks and audiobooks with just a library card. It syncs with Kindle, works worldwide, and has slashed Gabe's book budget to nearly zero. Your wallet — and your local library — will thank you.
You moved across the country to be closer to your dad's side of the family, only to spend years feeling like an afterthought. Now your stepmother throws tantrums, your brothers won't speak to you, and "family meetings" just mean apologizing endlessly. How do you escape this impossible cycle?
Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [email protected]!
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Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi.
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