About
The Institute
Founding
The Institute was founded in 2011 by Orrin Bletchley, a former McKinsey associate who, by his own admission, observed a correlation once and devoted the remainder of his professional life to the rest. Funding for the first three years came from a single unrestricted grant the source of which has since been lost to institutional memory.
The Institute is headquartered in a leased suite above a chartered accountant's office. It employs eleven full-time researchers, four adjunct faculty, a bookkeeper who does not wish to be named, and a golden retriever named Variable who appears in the wellness section of the quarterly transparency report.
Theory of Correlation
The Institute holds that any two measurable phenomena are, in principle, correlable. Our research program does not concern itself with whether such correlations are causal, informative, or useful. We are interested in whether they exist.
We publish our findings unconditionally. We decline to editorialize. We leave interpretation to the practitioner — or, in the absence of one, to the reader's own intuition about what data is for.
Our Three Pillars
Measure
If it is observable and non-zero, we will report on it.
Publish
Fifty to sixty findings annually in the Quarterly Report and the Almanac.
Credential
We certify practitioners through the fake peer-review process we designed ourselves.
Transparency
The Institute publishes an annual transparency report summarizing revenue by stream (instruments, publications, advisory, credentialing, merchandise), operating expenses, and a narrative account of funding sources the Institute does not recall accepting but cannot rule out having deposited.
The 2025 transparency report is currently embargoed pending an internal review of the review process.