Most members of Stanford’s class of 2026 are smart, ambitious, and poised for remarkable careers. Theo Baker already has one. In his first semester of college, Baker broke the story that forced Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne to resign — work that earned him a George Polk Award, one of journalism’s highest honors. Warner Brothers and producer Amy Pascal have optioned the rights to that story. And Tuesday, with graduation less than a month away, Baker publishes How to Rule the World, a sweeping account of his time at Stanford and the school’s often insidious relationship with the venture capital industry. Judging by early interest, it has every chance of becoming a bestseller.
We’ve been anticipating this one (we shared some related thoughts about it just a few weeks ago). We talked with Baker last Friday. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You showed up at Stanford as a coder. How did you end up breaking one of the biggest stories in the university’s history before your freshman year was even over?
I arrived thinking tech and entrepreneurship was the path for me. I joined the student hackathon, Tree Hacks, helped run it, skipped ahead to the CS weeder class. But my grandfather, with whom I was very close, had passed away a few weeks before I arrived, and he talked about working on the student paper more than anyone I’d ever known. 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 campus.
Very quickly things spiraled from there. My first few stories got more reception than we’d imagined, tips started flooding in, and one led me to a pseud …