“How to Rule the World,” out May 19 — three weeks before he graduates — promises an explosive look at how venture capitalists treat Stanford students as “a commodity,” wooing favored undergrads with slush funds, shell companies, yacht parties, and funding offers before they even have business ideas in their hunt for the next trillion-dollar founder.
“I watched in real time as my peers were taught to cut corners and plied with enormous wealth by people who wanted to exploit their talent,” Baker, who turns 21 next month, tells Axios. Drawing on more than 250 interviews with students, CEOs, VCs, Nobel laureates, and three Stanford presidents, the book aims to expose what Baker describes to Axios as a “weird, money-soaked subculture that has so much influence over the rest of the world.”