Theo Baker spent four years investigating Stanford. Before he left, here’s what he found.

Many members of Stanford’s class of 2026 are smart, ambitious, and ready for amazing careers. Theo Baker already has it. In his first semester in college, Baker broke the story that forced Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne to resign — work that earned him the George Polk Award, one of journalism’s highest honors. Warner Brothers and producer Amy Pascal have optioned the rights to that story. And on Tuesday, with graduation one month away, Baker publishes How to Rule the Worlda sweeping account of his time at Stanford and the school’s often-hidden relationship with the financial industry. Judging by the early interest, it has every chance of selling well.

We’ve been waiting for this one (we had some related comments about it a few weeks ago). We spoke with Baker last Friday. This interview is edited for length and clarity.

He appeared at Stanford as a coder. How did you end up breaking one of the biggest stories in university history before the end of your first year?

I came in thinking that technology and business was the path for me. I joined a student hackathon, Tree Hacks, helped run it, skipped to the CS weeder class. But my grandfather, who I was very close to, had died a few weeks before I arrived, and he talked about working on the student paper more than anyone I knew. So I joined the student paper to feel connected to him – it was supposed to be a hobby, a way to meet people and explore the campus.

Things quickly took off from there. My first few stories got more acceptance than we thought, tips started pouring in, and one led me to an anonymous website called PubPeer, where scientists dissect published research. There was a comment, which was seven years old at the time, alleging that the papers co-authored by the president of Stanford, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, contained images that were duplicated, different, or unusual. I had been at Stanford for a month when that investigation began, and by the time I returned for my second year, the president had resigned.

Have you been warned about the matter?

Many times, before I publish my first article. People warned me that Tessier-Lavigne was a person of the highest integrity and reputation – that I didn’t want to do this, that it would put me in a very bad position within the institution. That is, it was not a mistake. Over the next 10 months, as the story unfolded, the backlash intensified. Within 24 hours of my first story, the board of trustees announced its own investigation. I soon learned that one of the board members had an $18 million investment in Denali Therapeutics, the biotech company Tessier-Lavigne co-founded. And the statement announcing the investigation praised her “integrity and honor”—in an investigation that looked at her scientific integrity. So the investigation itself became something to report. Tessier-Lavigne never once responded directly to a request for comment during my freshman year. Eventually she began sending missiles to the entire faculty — including all my professors — describing my reporting as “outrageously offensive and full of lies.” Then I started hearing more from her lawyers.

The book is about something broader, though — what you call Stanford within Stanford. What does that mean?

Soon after I arrived, I realized that there was this same reality – an inner world – where kids identified early on as multi-billion dollar startup founders were plucked from the crowd and placed in a world of access and resources. Yacht parties, dirty money, everyone texting the same billionaires for advice on the weekends. Since Stanford has become so famous as the home of great startups, it has become difficult, according to some university insiders, to spot real talent. So many people come thinking that they can be the next billion dollars that there is a whole system of hangers-on whose job it is to separate what they call “entrepreneurs” – people who do it because it looks good – from those who are called powerful builders. It is a program designed to attract young people to make money as quickly as possible.

The title of the book, it turns out, is not just a metaphor.

No. The name is literally the name of a so-called secret class at Stanford, taught by a Silicon Valley CEO. It’s not really a class. It’s like Skull and Bones for tech seekers. People don’t get course credit, but there are lectures, discussions, guest speakers, held once a week during the winter term on campus. When I arrived, it was a status symbol to even know it was there – it made you “closer to the law,” as one person told me. What this guy Justin was trying to do – as the students in the class told me – is what everyone else seems to be trying to do: go in and connect with young people who can be helpful to you, young people. He was the only one who saw how to clothe himself in this mystique and make these talented, promising children come to him, because he promised them how they would rule the world. He promised that the smartest students at Stanford would meet in this meeting of 12 people, and that the only way to learn these secrets was to go through him. It is a very sad example of how this talent mining program has come out in strange ways.

What does that talent scouting system actually look like on the ground?

There are VCs who hire Stanford seniors to mentor new people as soon as they arrive on campus. It has been kept vague on purpose. I’ve had people tell me that it’s seen as anti-signal to join one of the big business clubs, because that looks like you’re doing it for the title – instead of being in one of the secret groups where the real builders gather. But since there is real talent among the children in this world, the main lesson is who you know – even if you are tapped on the shoulder. There was a CEO who emailed me as a newborn, asking to get to know me. The first time we went to dinner, we went to the Rosewood Hotel, and he’s sitting there eating his eight-month-old caviar as he casually states that his first ever contract is with Muammar Gaddafi. That ease is something I find fascinating. And this entire program goes a long way toward explaining how big fraud happens. It starts by putting huge amounts of authority, money, and power into the hands of the youth without adequate safeguards in case things go wrong.

You got there just as the fall of FTX was happening and ChatGPT was launched. What was it like to see it up close?

The timing almost made sense. We came to the end of the crypto craze – the thought when we emerged that crypto was the way to make your fortune. SBF starts dropping on November 2nd. ChatGPT comes out on November 30th. And soon everything pivots. I remember being at a dinner after the release of ChatGPT, sitting with one of the biggest crypto developers on campus, and he told me that SBF was “directly correct” – that was the expression – but that everyone was trying to find a way around the legitimacy. And quickly, many of those people realized that AI was a new thing that they could jump on. They told me that they can achieve the same height as SBF, preferably without falling, by using a new material. Silicon Valley works in cycles, but this one was more interesting to watch up close because the scale is indescribable.

Do you think your peers lean into entrepreneurship in part because of concerns about the job market?

Definitely. The rush for AI has made talent the resource I can find in today’s gold rush – top researchers and innovators are more important than ever, but entry-level positions are starting to disappear. There is a common refrain among people in this world that it is easier to raise start-up money now than to get an internship. Which is remarkable, right? Entrepreneurship, instead of being an outsider that does not conform to what you may have once been associated with, has become the norm. That changes its nature completely.

What advice would you give to a 17-year-old heading to Stanford or any top university today?

You have to be really careful that you’re doing what you’re doing because you believe in it and because it’s the right thing to do – or because it’s the easy thing to do. It’s very easy to get distracted by trends and the whirlpool of technology, only to find yourself wasted in a job you don’t really want because you followed the expected path. Following the expected path is less fun than going out and doing something for yourself. I love the great innovators that come out of this place because they feel empowered to make a difference. You have to make sure that you are doing it for the right reasons – not just because you want to get rich.

You came here thinking you’re going to be an inventor. Do you still want to start something?

Honestly, I haven’t thought about it that much – it’s been a crazy race to finish the book and get to graduation, which surprisingly is only a month away. But I think it comes from the book that I really fell in love with journalism. It’s an attitude, almost an affliction, more than a job. Whatever I do, it will go against that.