Most members of Stanford’s class of 2026 are sensible, bold, and poised for exceptional careers. Theo Baker already has one. In his first semester of school, Baker broke the story that compelled Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne to resign — work that earned him a George Polk Award, one among 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 Tips on how to Rule the World, a sweeping account of his time at Stanford and the varsity’s typically insidious relationship with the enterprise capital trade. Judging by early curiosity, it has each likelihood of changing into a bestseller.
We’ve been anticipating this one (we shared some associated ideas about it only a few 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 greatest tales within the college’s historical past earlier than your freshman yr was even over?
I arrived considering tech and entrepreneurship was the trail for me. I joined the coed 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 just a few weeks earlier than I arrived, and he talked about engaged on the coed paper greater than anybody I’d ever identified. So I joined the coed paper to really feel linked to him — it was speculated to be a passion, a approach to meet individuals and discover campus.
In a short time issues spiraled from there. My first few tales received extra reception than we’d imagined, ideas began flooding in, and one led me to a pseudonymous web site known as PubPeer, the place scientists dissect revealed analysis. There have been feedback, seven years outdated on the time, suspecting that papers co-authored by Stanford’s president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, had photos that had been duplicated, spliced, or in any other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 yr, the president had resigned.
Had been you warned off the story?
A number of instances, earlier than I’d even revealed my first article. Folks 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 position me in a really uncomfortable place inside the establishment. Which, in fact, was not mistaken. Over the course of the subsequent 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 saying the investigation praised his “integrity and honor”— in an investigation that was theoretically trying into his scientific integrity. So the investigation itself grew to become an object of reporting. Tessier-Lavigne by no means as soon as instantly responded to a request for remark throughout my freshman yr. Ultimately he started sending missives to all the college — 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 guide is de facto about one thing broader, although — what you name the Stanford inside Stanford. What does that imply?
Very quickly after I arrived, I noticed there was this parallel actuality — an inside world — the place the children recognized early as the subsequent trillion-dollar startup founders are plucked from the gang and positioned right into a world of entry and sources. Yacht events, slush funds, everybody texting the identical billionaires for recommendation on weekends. As Stanford has turn out to be extra well-known as the house of nice startups, it has turn out to be, in response to some individuals on the college, more and more troublesome to identify precise expertise. So many individuals arrive considering they are often the subsequent billion-dollar dropout that there’s a whole system of hangers-on whose job is to separate what they name the “wantrepreneurs” — individuals doing it as a result of it appears 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 doable.
The title of the guide, 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 probably not a category. It’s extra like a Cranium and Bones for the aspiring tech elite. Folks aren’t getting course credit score, however there are lectures, discussions, visitor audio system, held as soon as every week within the winter quarter on campus. After I arrived, it was a standing image even to realize 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 might be helpful to you, younger. Solely he discovered the way to cloak himself on this mystique and make these gifted, promising youngsters come to him, as a result of he was promising them the way to rule the world. He promised that probably the most good college students at Stanford would congregate on this 12-person seminar, and that the one approach to study these secrets and techniques was to undergo him. It’s a really poignant instance of how this method of expertise extraction has come to present itself in unusual methods.
What does that talent-scouting system truly seem like on the bottom?
There are VCs who make use of older Stanford upperclassmen to determine freshmen as quickly as they arrive on campus. It’s stored purposefully obscure. I’ve had individuals inform me it’s seen as an anti-signal to affix one of many large 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’s real expertise among the many youngsters on this world, the first qualification is who you recognize — whether or not you’re getting tapped on the shoulder. There was a CEO who cold-emailed me freshman yr, requested to get to know me. The primary time we went to dinner, we went to the Rosewood Resort, 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 complete system goes a great distance towards explaining how the massive frauds develop. It begins by vesting large quantities of authority, cash, and energy within the palms of youngsters with out enough safeguards for when issues go mistaken.
You arrived proper because the FTX collapse was occurring 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 once 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 all the things pivots. I bear in mind being at a dinner shortly after ChatGPT’s launch, sitting with one of many greatest 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 the way to get across the legality. And shortly, a lot of those self same individuals realized that AI was the brand new craze they might soar on. They informed me they might attain the identical heights as SBF, ideally with out the autumn, by profiting from the latest new factor. Silicon Valley operates in cycles, however this one has been significantly fascinating to look at up shut as a result of the size is simply unfathomable.
Do you suppose your friends are leaning into entrepreneurship partly out of hysteria in regards to the job market?
Completely. The AI rush has made expertise the useful resource to mine on this modern-day gold rush — probably the most priceless researchers and founders are extra priceless than ever, however entry-level positions are beginning to disappear. There’s a typical chorus amongst individuals on this world that it’s simpler to boost cash for a startup proper now than to get an internship. Which is exceptional, proper? Entrepreneurship, quite than being the non-conformist outsider factor it’d as soon as have been related to, has turn out to be an anticipated path. That adjustments the character of it totally.
What’s one piece of recommendation you’d give to a 17-year-old heading to Stanford or any elite college in the present day?
You must be actually aware about whether or not you’re doing what you’re doing since you imagine in it and since it’s the best factor — or as a result of it’s the simple factor. It’s very straightforward 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 means much less attention-grabbing than going out and doing one thing for your self. I love one of the best founders who emerge from this place as a result of they really feel genuinely empowered to make a distinction. You simply must watch out that you simply’re doing it for the best 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?
Actually, I haven’t thought of it that a lot — it’s been a mad sprint to complete the guide and get to commencement, which is astonishingly solely a few month away. However I feel it comes throughout within the guide 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 is going to intersect with that.
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