# The Perplexity subscription > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "The Perplexity subscription," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-perplexity-subscription/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The free lifetime account John Kiriakou says the chief executive of Perplexity emailed him at ten o'clock at night, days after he told Joe Rogan's audience that ChatGPT had invented a University of Maryland degree and a Belgian graduate school for him, and that when he corrected it, the machine argued back.* - **Trigger:** Kiriakou's AI complaint on the Joe Rogan podcast, October 2025 - **The invented facts:** A University of Maryland degree and a graduate school in Belgium - **What Rogan said:** The studio uses Perplexity for its own work - **The gift:** A free lifetime subscription, sent by the CEO around 10pm - **Told:** DeProgram, 5 November 2025 **The Perplexity subscription** is a free lifetime account [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) says he was sent unsolicited by the company's chief executive, days after he complained about a competing product on [Joe Rogan's podcast](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/joe-rogan). He told the story on DeProgram on 5 November 2025, prefacing it as *"apropos of nothing, but I thought people would get a kick out of it."*[1] ## The machine that argued back The complaint that started it concerned invented biography. *"When I was on Rogan a couple of weeks ago, we somehow got on to the topic of AI, and I said I didn't like ChatGPT because it lied about me. It just made up that I went to the University of Maryland and to some grad school in Belgium that I've never heard of."*[1] What he found notable was not the error but the refusal to concede it. *"I told ChatGPT, you're wrong. And it says, no, you're wrong."*[1] The exchange sits alongside his broader objection to the industry's preferred vocabulary, that a machine stating falsehoods is not hallucinating. ## Rogan's answer Rogan, in Kiriakou's account, responded with a product recommendation and a disclosure attached to it: *"Oh, we use Perplexity here. They are advertisers on the show, but for our own use here at the studio, we use Perplexity."* Kiriakou's reply was immediate, *"I'm going to start using Perplexity"*, and on the podcast, that was the end of it.[2] ## The email at ten o'clock The consequence arrived weeks later and unbidden. *"Last night around like 10 o'clock, the CEO of Perplexity sent me an email with a lifetime subscription to Perplexity."*[2] Kiriakou quoted the message: *"Thank you for the conversation you had about Perplexity. Here's a link, it's for Perplexity employees. It's a free lifetime subscription to Perplexity."*[3] He accepted the point of the gesture without pretending to be above it: *"So now I'm going to be all about Perplexity."*[3] The episode is a small, unusually legible instance of a pattern Kiriakou has described elsewhere in his post-agency life, that a remark made on a large enough platform produces offers, invitations and gifts from parties he has never met, and that the offers arrive faster than any of them can be assessed. ## See also - [Joe Rogan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/joe-rogan) - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) ## Sources 1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-11-05), at 20:25. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mebPnYD1ko&t=1225s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-05-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-1mebPn/ 2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-11-05), at 20:57. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mebPnYD1ko&t=1257s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-05-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-1mebPn/ 3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-11-05), at 21:28. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mebPnYD1ko&t=1288s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-05-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-1mebPn/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-perplexity-subscription/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt