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

Published

3 months ago

May 19, 2026

Preport

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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 pseudonymous website called PubPeer, where scientists dissect published research. There were comments, seven years old at the time, suspecting that papers co-authored by Stanford’s president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, had images that were duplicated, spliced, or otherwise irregular. I was a month into my time at Stanford when that investigation began, and by the time I was back for sophomore year, the president had resigned.

Were you warned off the story?

Multiple times, before I’d even published my first article. People warned me that Tessier-Lavigne was a person of very high integrity with a sterling reputation — that I didn’t want to do this, that it was going to place me in a very uncomfortable position within the institution. Which, of course, was not wrong. Over the course of the next 10 months, as the story widened, the pushback grew steeper. Within 24 hours of my first story, the board of trustees announced their own investigation. I quickly learned that one of the board members overseeing it had an $18 million investment in Denali Therapeutics, the biotech company Tessier-Lavigne co-founded. And the statement announcing the investigation praised his “integrity and honor”— in an investigation that was theoretically looking into his scientific integrity. So the investigation itself became an object of reporting. Tessier-Lavigne never once directly responded to a request for comment during my freshman year. Eventually he began sending missives to all of the faculty — which included all of my professors — describing my reporting as “breathtakingly outrageous and replete with falsehoods.” And then I began hearing more from his lawyers.

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

Very soon after I arrived, I realized there was this parallel reality — an inside world — where the kids identified early as the next trillion-dollar startup founders are plucked from the crowd and placed into a world of access and resources. Yacht parties, slush funds, everyone texting the same billionaires for advice on weekends. As Stanford has become more famous as the home of great startups, it has become, according to some people at the university, increasingly difficult to spot actual talent. So many people arrive thinking they can be the next billion-dollar dropout that there’s an entire system of hangers-on whose job is to separate what they call the “wantrepreneurs” — people doing it because it looks good — from the so-called builders who actually have potential. It’s a system designed to sniff out the teenagers you can make a buck off of as early as possible.

The title of the book, it turns out, isn’t just a metaphor.

No. It’s 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 more like a Skull and Bones for the aspiring tech elite. People aren’t getting course credit, but there are lectures, discussions, guest speakers, held once a week in the winter quarter on campus. When I arrived, it was a status symbol even to know it existed — that made you “rule-adjacent,” as one person told me. What this guy Justin was trying to do — as the students in the class told me — was what everyone seems to be trying to do: get in and network with the teenagers who can be useful to you, young. Only he figured out how to cloak himself in this mystique and make these talented, promising kids come to him, because he was promising them how to rule the world. He promised that the most brilliant students at Stanford would congregate in this 12-person seminar, and that the only way to learn these secrets was to go through him. It’s a very poignant example of how this system of talent extraction has come to manifest itself in strange ways.

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

There are VCs who employ older Stanford upperclassmen to identify freshmen as soon as they arrive on campus. It’s kept purposefully obscure. I’ve had people tell me it’s seen as an anti-signal to join one of the big entrepreneurship clubs, because that looks like you’re doing it for the title — as opposed to being in one of the secret feeder groups where the true builders supposedly congregate. But as much as there is genuine talent among the kids in this world, the primary qualification is who you know — whether you’re getting tapped on the shoulder. There was a CEO who cold-emailed me freshman year, asked to get to know me. The first time we went to dinner, we went to the Rosewood Hotel, 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 something I find fascinating. And this whole system goes a long way toward explaining how the big frauds develop. It starts by vesting huge amounts of authority, money, and power in the hands of teenagers without adequate safeguards for when things go wrong.

You arrived right as the FTX collapse was happening and ChatGPT launched. What was that like to observe up close?

The timing was almost absurd. We arrived at the tail end of the crypto craze — the assumption when we showed up was that crypto was how you were going to make your fortune. SBF begins his descent on November 2nd. ChatGPT comes out November 30th. And immediately everything pivots. I remember being at a dinner shortly after ChatGPT’s release, sitting with one of the biggest crypto boosters on campus, and he’s telling me that SBF was “directionally correct” — that was the phrase — but that everyone was trying to figure out how to get around the legality. And quickly, many of those same people realized that AI was the new craze they could jump on. They told me they could reach the same heights as SBF, preferably without the fall, by taking advantage of the newest new thing. Silicon Valley operates in cycles, but this one has been particularly fascinating to observe up close because the scale is just unfathomable.

Do you think your peers are leaning into entrepreneurship partly out of anxiety about the job market?

Absolutely. The AI rush has made talent the resource to mine in this modern-day gold rush — the most valuable researchers and founders are more valuable than ever, but entry-level positions are starting to disappear. There’s a common refrain among people in this world that it’s easier to raise money for a startup right now than to get an internship. Which is remarkable, right? Entrepreneurship, rather than being the non-conformist outsider thing it might once have been associated with, has become an expected path. That changes the nature of it entirely.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to a 17-year-old heading to Stanford or any elite university today?

You have to be really conscious about whether you’re doing what you’re doing because you believe in it and because it’s the right thing — or because it’s the easy thing. It’s very easy to be buffeted by trends and the tech whirlpool, to find yourself wasting away at a job you don’t actually want because you followed the expected path. Following the expected path is way less interesting than going out and doing something for yourself. I admire the best founders who emerge from this place because they feel genuinely empowered to make a difference. You just have to be careful that you’re doing it for the right reasons — and not just because you want to get rich.

You came here thinking you’d be a founder. Do you still want to start something?

Honestly, I haven’t thought about it that much — it’s been a mad dash to finish the book and get to graduation, which is astonishingly only about a month away. But I think it comes across in the book that I really did fall in love with journalism. It’s a temperament, almost an affliction, more than a career. Whatever I do, it will intersect with that.

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Related Topics:Baker heres investigating Leaves spent Stanford Theo years

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Court of Appeal sets aside judgment recognising Shehu Gabam as SDP chairman

Published

2 hours ago

August 12, 2026

Preport

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has set aside the judgment of the Federal High Court recognising expelled Shehu Gabam as the National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party, SDP.

A three-member panel of the appellate court, comprising Justices Fadawu Umaru, M.S. Hassan and L.A. Ganiyu, delivered a unanimous judgment on Wednesday.

In his lead judgment, Justice Fadawu Umaru declared the judgment of Justice M.G. Umar in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/402/2026 null and void.

The development followed an appeal filed by the SDP leadership under Prof Abubakar Sadiq Gombe against the Federal High Court judgment recognising Gabam as the party’s National Chairman.

The Court of Appeal held that the basis upon which the Federal High Court delivered its judgment was faulty, noting that the Supreme Court had already ruled on the matter in favour of Sadiq’s leadership.

Speaking after the judgment, SDP presidential candidate and counsel to the appellants, Prince Adewole Adebayo, said the appellate court unanimously ruled in favour of the SDP in all six applications considered during the proceedings.

He said the Court of Appeal also declared the Federal High Court judgment recognising Gabam null and void because it contradicted an earlier decision of the Supreme Court.

“Today, the Court of Appeal set aside the Federal High Court judgment which our former National Chairman and former and expelled member, Mr Shehu Musa Gabam, was using to compel INEC to recognise him as National Chairman, even though he has been expelled from the party, and to recognise another expelled former member as an acting National Secretary,” Adebayo said.

“In Today’s judgment by the Court of Appeal, six applications by the parties were considered, and the Court of Appeal unanimously ruled in favour of the SDP in all the applications.

“And the substantive appeal, the Court of Appeal took two decisions.

“One, that the judgment of the court recognising Shehu Gabam of the Federal High Court is null and void; it’s a nullity because it contradicts the decision earlier delivered by the Supreme Court on May 22, 2026, and no court in Nigeria and no person in Nigeria can contradict the Supreme Court.

“So, to the extent that the judge, Justice Umar of the Federal High Court, even entertained any question about the leadership of the SDP or even the opportunity to recognise our court hearing to Shehu Gabam and his team, it is null and void.

“Secondly, the court affirmed that Ajala, Dr Francis Ajala, having been nominated by the SDP as its governorship candidate in Osun State, the Federal High Court was wrong to even listen to the plaintiff, Salahu, who claims to be the SDP candidate for Gabam.”

Adebayo described the judgment as the conclusion of a prolonged legal battle over the leadership of the party.

He said the judiciary had played a significant role in resolving the dispute and providing guidance to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“That’s the summary of the long four hours of delivery. And you have to note that prior to these six rulings being made Today and the judgment of the Court of Appeal, last week the court itself had entertained a lot of applications,” he said.

“So, the judiciary has done very well for Nigeria and has guided INEC very well.

“I can tell you categorically, subject to the will of God, you will never hear of any leadership dispute in the SDP for the next 100 years. That is over and settled.

“It is how to get rid of Tinubu and his calamitous government that is now the agenda before the party and the people of Nigeria,” he said.

Also speaking, SDP National Chairman, Prof. Gombe, commended the judiciary for what he described as the expedited resolution of the case.

Gombe said INEC should respect the internal affairs and candidate-selection decisions of all registered political parties.

He said, “I hope, just as the presidential candidate, and I hope just as Dr Adebayo has said, he has said it all about the ruling, about what is the needful that INEC is supposed to do.

“And INEC will not just—we are not just calling on INEC to respect SDP alone, to respect all the political parties, the 22 registered political parties, and respect their internal affairs, respect their decisions about candidate selection and whatsoever.

“And I also want to use the opportunity to thank the judiciary for the expeditious way they were able to carry out this judgment in just about four or five days.

“And also, I want to use this opportunity to most profoundly thank our presidential candidate, who led the legal team, for the wonderful job they have done for the party, not just for the party but for our democracy and our nation.

“Indeed, this is something that will affect not only democracy in Nigeria but in other countries in Africa.

“Nigeria is not just for Nigeria in Africa. Nigeria, just like Nelson Mandela said, if we have exactly the right in Nigeria, we are going to get the right in Africa and the Black Nation are going to get the right.

“So, I would also use this opportunity to thank INEC for being ahead and doing the task of reproducing the ballot and including the SDP candidate even before Today’s meeting.

“Finally, I want to use the opportunity to thank you most sincerely, the media, for all the cooperation you accorded to us over the last one year of flux.

“You have seen and gone through all the challenges we have faced, and we have been up and doing, always very cooperative and reporting our issues very positively.

“So, we thank you most sincerely, and we hope this will continue and we are not going to take this for granted.

“Going forward, I hope you are going to do everything possible to continue to enlighten the public towards having three fair and credible 2027 general elections, with the SDP leading the pack of the other political parties in this country.”

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NPFL Super 6 Pre-Season Championship: Nigeria’s Continental Clubs Storm Jos for One-Week Football Fiesta

Published

2 hours ago

August 12, 2026

Preport

Jos, Plateau State, is set to become the centre of Nigerian club football as some of the country’s leading teams converge in the city for the 2026 NPFL Super 6 Pre-Season Championship, a one-week tournament designed to prepare Nigeria’s continental representatives for the challenges ahead.

The championship, which kicks off on Tuesday, August 18, 2026, will bring together six prominent clubs, including four teams representing Nigeria in next season’s CAF inter-club competitions. The participating teams are expected to arrive in Jos on Monday, August 17, ahead of the tournament.

Among the clubs heading to the Plateau State capital are Rangers International FC of Enugu and Rivers United FC of Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s representatives in the CAF Champions League, alongside Shooting Stars Sports Club of Ibadan and El-Kanemi Warriors FC of Maiduguri, who will represent the country in the CAF Confederation Cup.

The two remaining slots will be occupied by the host state’s football giants, Plateau United FC and Mighty Jets FC, giving football fans in Jos the opportunity to watch some of the country’s top clubs compete in a high-quality pre-season tournament.

Preparing Nigeria’s Clubs for Continental Challenges

The championship is primarily aimed at ensuring that Nigeria’s representatives in continental competitions are adequately prepared for the demanding fixtures ahead. With Nigerian clubs seeking to make a stronger impression on the continental stage, the Jos tournament is expected to provide the participating teams with valuable competitive action, tactical testing and an opportunity to assess their squads ahead of the new season.

Beyond the continental representatives, the tournament will also provide Plateau United and Mighty Jets with an important platform to sharpen their squads and prepare for their own ambitions on the domestic and continental fronts.

The organisers believe the championship will help improve the competitiveness of Nigerian clubs while contributing to the broader development and promotion of football in the country.

Plateau Reaffirms Its Position as Football Hub

Speaking on the tournament, the Chairman of the Plateau State Football Association, Hon. (Dr.) Prince Suleiman Yahaya Kwande, expressed appreciation to the Plateau State Government for its continued support for sports development in the state.

“I must once again thank the Executive Governor of Plateau State, His Excellency, Barrister Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang, for giving sports, especially our football, an enabling and conducive environment to thrive with his unwavering support. We can’t thank him enough.”

Kwande noted that hosting the championship further demonstrates Plateau State’s growing reputation as one of Nigeria’s important football destinations.

“The hosting of the NPFL Super 6 in Jos further reinforces Plateau State’s growing reputation as a major football hub and destination for sporting excellence in Nigeria.”

Football Fans Invited to Jos

The Plateau State Football Association chairman also called on football lovers and residents of the state to take advantage of the championship and come out to support the participating clubs.

“We therefore warmly invite football lovers, supporters’ groups, youth organizations, sports enthusiasts, and the people of Plateau State to come out in large numbers to support the participating clubs and experience the excitement, competitiveness, and quality of Nigeria’s premier professional football.”

With six clubs bringing together a mixture of experience, ambition and continental aspirations, the tournament is expected to offer football enthusiasts in Jos a week of exciting encounters and quality football.

The 2026 NPFL Super 6 Pre-Season Championship is organised by the Plateau State Football Association (PFA) in conjunction with the Plateau State Ministry of Youth and Sports Development.

As the participating clubs arrive in Jos on August 17, attention will turn to the opening fixtures on Tuesday, August 18, as the Plateau State capital prepares to host what promises to be a significant pre-season football spectacle.

Jos is ready. The clubs are coming. And Nigerian football takes centre stage on the Plateau. ⚽🔥