Most members of Stanford’s class of 2026 are good, bold, and poised for outstanding careers. Theo Baker already has one. In his first semester of faculty, Baker broke the story that compelled Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne to resign — work that earned him a George Polk Award, certainly one of journalism’s highest honors. Warner Brothers and producer Amy Pascal have optioned the rights to that story. And Tuesday, with commencement lower than a month away, Baker publishes How to Rule the World, a sweeping account of his time at Stanford and the varsity’s usually insidious relationship with the enterprise capital trade. Judging by early curiosity, it has each likelihood of turning into a bestseller.
We’ve been anticipating this one (we shared some related thoughts about it just some weeks in the past). We talked with Baker final Friday. This interview has been edited for size and readability.
You confirmed up at Stanford as a coder. How did you find yourself breaking one of many largest tales within the college’s historical past earlier than your freshman 12 months was even over?
I arrived considering tech and entrepreneurship was the trail for me. I joined the scholar hackathon, Tree Hacks, helped run it, skipped forward to the CS weeder class. However my grandfather, with whom I used to be very shut, had handed away a number of weeks earlier than I arrived, and he talked about engaged on the scholar paper greater than anybody I’d ever recognized. So I joined the scholar paper to really feel linked to him — it was presupposed to be a interest, a solution to meet folks and discover campus.
In a short time issues spiraled from there. My first few tales acquired extra reception than we’d imagined, suggestions began flooding in, and one led me to a pseudonymous web site referred to as PubPeer, the place scientists dissect revealed analysis. There have been feedback, seven years previous on the time, suspecting that papers co-authored by Stanford’s president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, had photos that had been duplicated, spliced, or in any other case irregular. I used to be a month into my time at Stanford when that investigation started, and by the point I used to be again for sophomore 12 months, the president had resigned.
Had been you warned off the story?
A number of instances, earlier than I’d even revealed my first article. Individuals warned me that Tessier-Lavigne was an individual of very excessive integrity with a sterling fame — that I didn’t wish to do that, that it was going to put me in a really uncomfortable place inside the establishment. Which, in fact, was not unsuitable. Over the course of the following 10 months, because the story widened, the pushback grew steeper. Inside 24 hours of my first story, the board of trustees introduced their very own investigation. I shortly realized that one of many board members overseeing it had an $18 million funding in Denali Therapeutics, the biotech firm Tessier-Lavigne co-founded. And the assertion asserting the investigation praised his “integrity and honor”— in an investigation that was theoretically wanting into his scientific integrity. So the investigation itself turned an object of reporting. Tessier-Lavigne by no means as soon as instantly responded to a request for remark throughout my freshman 12 months. Finally he started sending missives to the entire school — which included all of my professors — describing my reporting as “breathtakingly outrageous and replete with falsehoods.” After which I started listening to extra from his legal professionals.
The e-book is actually about one thing broader, although — what you name the Stanford inside Stanford. What does that imply?
Very quickly after I arrived, I spotted there was this parallel actuality — an inside world — the place the children recognized early as the following trillion-dollar startup founders are plucked from the group and positioned right into a world of entry and assets. Yacht events, slush funds, everybody texting the identical billionaires for recommendation on weekends. As Stanford has change into extra well-known as the house of nice startups, it has change into, in line with some folks on the college, more and more troublesome to identify precise expertise. So many individuals arrive considering they are often the following billion-dollar dropout that there’s a complete system of hangers-on whose job is to separate what they name the “wantrepreneurs” — folks doing it as a result of it seems to be good — from the so-called builders who even have potential. It’s a system designed to smell out the youngsters you can also make a buck off of as early as attainable.
The title of the e-book, it seems, isn’t only a metaphor.
No. It’s actually the identify of a so-called secret class at Stanford, taught by a Silicon Valley CEO. It’s not likely a category. It’s extra like a Cranium and Bones for the aspiring tech elite. Individuals aren’t getting course credit score, however there are lectures, discussions, visitor audio system, held as soon as per week within the winter quarter on campus. After I arrived, it was a standing image even to understand it existed — that made you “rule-adjacent,” as one individual informed me. What this man Justin was making an attempt to do — as the scholars within the class informed me — was what everybody appears to be making an attempt to do: get in and community with the youngsters who could be helpful to you, younger. Solely he found out easy methods to cloak himself on this mystique and make these proficient, promising children come to him, as a result of he was promising them easy methods to rule the world. He promised that essentially the most sensible college students at Stanford would congregate on this 12-person seminar, and that the one solution to study these secrets and techniques was to undergo him. It’s a really poignant instance of how this technique of expertise extraction has come to present itself in unusual methods.
What does that talent-scouting system truly appear to be on the bottom?
There are VCs who make use of older Stanford upperclassmen to establish freshmen as quickly as they arrive on campus. It’s stored purposefully obscure. I’ve had folks inform me it’s seen as an anti-signal to hitch one of many huge entrepreneurship golf equipment, as a result of that appears such as you’re doing it for the title — versus being in one of many secret feeder teams the place the true builders supposedly congregate. However as a lot as there may be real expertise among the many children on this world, the first qualification is who you realize — whether or not you’re getting tapped on the shoulder. There was a CEO who cold-emailed me freshman 12 months, requested to get to know me. The primary time we went to dinner, we went to the Rosewood Lodge, and he’s sitting there spoon-feeding his eight-month-old caviar as he casually mentions that his first-ever contract was for Muammar Gaddafi. That casualness is one thing I discover fascinating. And this entire system goes a good distance towards explaining how the large frauds develop. It begins by vesting enormous quantities of authority, cash, and energy within the arms of youngsters with out enough safeguards for when issues go unsuitable.
You arrived proper because the FTX collapse was taking place and ChatGPT launched. What was that like to look at up shut?
The timing was nearly absurd. We arrived on the tail finish of the crypto craze — the idea after we confirmed up was that crypto was the way you had been going to make your fortune. SBF begins his descent on November 2nd. ChatGPT comes out November thirtieth. And instantly every part pivots. I keep in mind being at a dinner shortly after ChatGPT’s launch, sitting with one of many largest crypto boosters on campus, and he’s telling me that SBF was “directionally right” — that was the phrase — however that everybody was making an attempt to determine easy methods to get across the legality. And shortly, a lot of those self same folks realized that AI was the brand new craze they might leap on. They informed me they might attain the identical heights as SBF, ideally with out the autumn, by making the most of the latest new factor. Silicon Valley operates in cycles, however this one has been notably fascinating to look at up shut as a result of the dimensions is simply unfathomable.
Do you assume your friends are leaning into entrepreneurship partly out of hysteria concerning the job market?
Completely. The AI rush has made expertise the useful resource to mine on this modern-day gold rush — essentially the most worthwhile researchers and founders are extra worthwhile than ever, however entry-level positions are beginning to disappear. There’s a typical chorus amongst folks on this world that it’s simpler to boost cash for a startup proper now than to get an internship. Which is outstanding, proper? Entrepreneurship, somewhat than being the non-conformist outsider factor it’d as soon as have been related to, has change into an anticipated path. That modifications the character of it completely.
What’s one piece of recommendation you’d give to a 17-year-old heading to Stanford or any elite college immediately?
You must be actually aware about whether or not you’re doing what you’re doing since you consider in it and since it’s the proper factor — or as a result of it’s the straightforward factor. It’s very simple to be buffeted by traits and the tech whirlpool, to seek out your self losing away at a job you don’t truly need since you adopted the anticipated path. Following the anticipated path is method much less attention-grabbing than going out and doing one thing for your self. I love the perfect founders who emerge from this place as a result of they really feel genuinely empowered to make a distinction. You simply need to watch out that you simply’re doing it for the proper causes — and never simply since you wish to get wealthy.
You got here right here considering you’d be a founder. Do you continue to wish to begin one thing?
Truthfully, I haven’t considered it that a lot — it’s been a mad sprint to complete the e-book and get to commencement, which is astonishingly solely a few month away. However I feel it comes throughout within the e-book that I actually did fall in love with journalism. It’s a temperament, nearly an affliction, greater than a profession. No matter I do, it would intersect with that.
If you buy by hyperlinks in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t have an effect on our editorial independence.