An Education in Power at Stanford University
“A rigorous, self-assured, propulsive, at times terrifying portrait of a dweebocracy that ‘sets the agenda for the planet’ … in the tradition of Michael Lewis's Wall Street chronicle Liar's Poker.”The New York Times
Named a Best Book of May By
Slush funds. Shell companies. Yacht parties. This is life for Silicon Valley’s favored teenagers.
Seventeen-year-old Theo Baker showed up for freshman year at Stanford University as a tech-obsessed coder. It seemed like paradise. There were Rodin sculptures next to nuclear laboratories and inventors lounging with Olympians. But Baker soon discovered a culture that embraced corner-cutting, that vested infinite excess and access in the hands of kids with few safeguards to catch bad behavior.
Stanford, he realized, was less a school than a business. Its annual budget was nearly twice that of Harvard or Yale and higher. that those of 116 countries. The product? Students. Especially those special few identified as the next trillion-dollar startup founders. For them there were secret societies, “pre-idea” funding offers, and social calls from billionaires, all with the expectation that these geniuses would soon join the ruling elite.
At the helm of this business was Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a superstar neuroscientist and wealthy biotech executive. But when Baker joined the student newspaper and started poking around the Stanford president’s record, he discovered never-reported allegations of research misconduct in studies published across two decades bearing Tessier-Lavigne’s name.
Only one month into college and thousands of miles from home, Baker began receiving anonymous letters, going on stakeouts, and tracking down confidential sources. High-powered lawyers and public relations teams were hired to attack his reporting. Stanford opened an investigation into its own leader. And by the end of the year, Tessier-Lavigne was out as president.
This is the incredible journey of a reluctant teenage reporter who uncovered a story that shook the scientific world and became front-page news across the country. It is also an unprecedented inside view of the students learning to rule the world — and what they’re learning from those who already do.
How to Rule the World is a shocking, hilarious, and moving debut, showcasing Silicon Valley’s training ground as never before.
A rigorous, self-assured, propulsive, at times terrifying portrait of a dweebocracy that ‘sets the agenda for the planet’ … in the tradition of Michael Lewis’s Wall Street chronicle Liar’s Poker.The New York Times
What a journalist. If Baker’s portrait of Stanford could be its own movie (The Internship crossed with The Skulls), his gripping account of how a tip turned into a history-making investigation has the makings of All the President’s Men.San Francisco Chronicle
This memoir is a stick of dynamite: explosive, shocking, and mesmerizing. It reminds me of Patrick Radden Keefe’s London Falling and Empire of Pain.AmazonBest Book of May 2026
Effectively, it’s All the President’s Men as a campus novel … the truly nauseating thing here is the moral void he sketches at the heart of the tech world.The Times (UK)
The Bonfire of the VCs … A vivid, dishy exposé of the sometimes comical, at times seemingly corrupt, efforts by tech funders to seduce undergraduates who smell like future moguls and geniuses, and vice versa.Axios
Poignant, maddening, and genuinely hilarious, How to Rule the World is to be devoured—and fast, before Stanford buys up and sets fire to every copy.Mark Leibovich#1 NYT Bestselling Author of This Town
This book is a funny, mind-blowing and infuriating exposé of Silicon Valley’s feeder school.Michael GrunwaldContributing writer, New York Times Opinion
Theo Baker’s blockbuster new book, How to Rule the World, has won wide praise for offering a nuanced insider’s look at a towering academic institution beset by ethical challenges.Town and Country
A gripping book … offering a blow-by-blow account of Baker’s investigation and … the university’s culture of excess and cronyism.BloombergParmy Olson
It reads like a memoir crossed with a spy thriller.Washington Monthly
Theo Baker has written a page-turning drama about what happens when the search for scientific truth has to compete with personal and institutional power. It’s a vital story about how higher education has lost sight of the students and ideals it was created to serve.Holden ThorpEditor-in-Chief, Science
A fascinating safari through modern academia, based on meticulous, damning reporting. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the culture of money and ambition that has taken hold at one of America’s most storied institutions.Jake Tapper#1 NYT Bestselling Author · CNN
How to Rule the World sounds like exactly the right book for this moment in time.Connie LoizosTechCrunch
Rendered in spare and propulsive prose, making it a nearly unfathomable accomplishment from someone so young.William CohanAuthor of House of Cards
In this absorbing memoir, a college journalist reveals how his scoops brought down his august school’s leader … brisk and punctuated with well-explained details.KirkusBest Book of May 2026
What emerges is a portrait of an institution where immense wealth and powerful relationships can make accountability feel frustratingly elusive … a revealing look at what happens when knowledge and innovation struggle to keep pace with greed.Apple BooksBest Book of May 2026
This incendiary account [is] a confident testament to the power of independent journalism from an author with a bright future.Publishers WeeklyStarred Review
A romp and rollick of a read.Andrew Ross Sorkin#1 NYT Bestselling Author of 1929
His vulnerability and brilliance leap off the page in equal measure.Amy PascalProducer · The Social Network
The determination, resourcefulness and sheer courage shown by a young man who turned 18 in the course of that year is remarkable.The New Statesman
Both a gripping personal journey and a searing indictment of our entanglement with tech wealth and influence, this book shows how real reporting can still unsettle, expose, and hold the powerful to account.Emily ChangEmmy-Award winning anchor, Bloomberg Originals
Stanford is one of America’s most influential and fascinating institutions, and the gulf between those qualities and the attention it receives is vast. The world badly needs an inside account of this mysterious corner of the country from which so much wealth has oozed, and Theo Baker is the perfect author to deliver it.Jonathan ChaitStaff writer, The Atlantic
An extraordinary, extraordinary thing ... Theo's a phenom.Ashlee VanceCore Memory
Offering a powerful lens into the making of Silicon Valley’s elite, a Stanford journalist brings to light never-before-reported allegations of serious misconduct.Barnes & NobleBest Book of May 2026
“Mr. Baker’s reporting was thorough and fearless — undertaken in circumstances in which he had much to lose. With young people like this, the future of journalism looks bright.”— John Darnton, Curator of the George Polk Awards
Published May 19, 2026 by Penguin Press and Allen Lane. Pick up a copy today, wherever you get your books.