How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University
Theo Baker
May 2026 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Theo Baker
headphones
Audiobook
11 hr 31 min
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
Want a free 10 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
The instant New York Times bestseller • A Tom Wolfe Literary Prize finalist • Named a Best Book of the Year (So Far) by New York Times, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Apple Books
“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
“A romp and rollick of a read.” —Andrew Ross Sorkin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of 1929
From Theo Baker, winner of the George Polk Award for his investigation that brought down Stanford's president, comes a revelatory and gripping account of Silicon Valley hubris.
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 than 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
“A romp and rollick of a read.” —Andrew Ross Sorkin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of 1929
From Theo Baker, winner of the George Polk Award for his investigation that brought down Stanford's president, comes a revelatory and gripping account of Silicon Valley hubris.
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 than 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.
The instant New York Times bestseller • A Tom Wolfe Literary Prize finalist • Named a Best Book of the Year (So Far) by New York Times, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Apple Books
“A rigorous, self-assured, propulsive, at times terrifying portrait of a dweebocracy that ‘sets the agenda for the plane...
Discover more
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
