How to Rule The World
An Education in Power at Stanford University
- Theo Baker . 2026 . ( May 19 on Amazon )
- HUNDREDS of CITATIONS NEEDED
No index, very difficult to follow the names through the text, so here's a list
- p001 - Tresidder Memorial Union - food court
- p002 - Justin
- p003 - comparison of summed public company values to GDPs (a 12 month sum) of countries
- p004 - Bob Martin - software pioneer
- p004 - Peter Thiel - Palantir founder
- p004 - Alex Karp - Palantir current CEO
- p004 - Ilya Sutskever - Safe Superintelligence founder
- p005 - ... - Thinking Machines startup
- p006 - Marc Tessier-Lavigne - MTL - Stanford President, former biotech executive, renowned neuroscientist
- searching for cause of Alzheimer's
- p007 - the Farm - Leland Stanford's horse farm
- p007 - John Hennessy - Stanford President 2000 to 2016
- p008 - William Shockley - Stanford Research Park
- p008 - 150 companies in Park: Tesla, Google, Lyft
- p008 - Sand Hill Road
- p008 - Stanford's own VC fund
- p009 - Google from grad student's garage (?)
p009 - Stanford adjacent: Instagram, DoorDash, 40,000 active companies
Anthropic, Capital One, Cisco, Electronic Arts, Expedia, LinkedIn, Netflix, Nike, OpenAI, Yahoo!, Zilloq
not expect: Bain&Company, Charles Schwab, Trader Joe's, TSMC(??), Victoria's Secret
- p009 - Nvidia founder Jensen Huang: "dawn till dusk, 7 d/wk, 52 wk/y
- p009 - Chamath Palihapitiya, 150 men rule the world, politicians all puppets
- p010 - Ray Lyman Wilbur, 1922? Stanford president, First Million club
p012 - Scott Turow One L book about first year at Harvard Law School
p015 - ch. 1 - Drafted to the War on Fun
- p016 - Makeshift boats for Lake Lagunita, motorized couches to get to class
- p016 - Wacky Walk, dress up as catholic Cardinals
- p017 - Campus 8180 acres, 8000 undergraduates
p017 - Hewlett and Packad, 1938 garage, $538 -> $12170 2026 dollars
p017 - Alondra the nerd dorm
- p018 - everyone lives on campus
p018 - Synergy nudist dorm, Enchanted Broccolo Forest marijuana dorm, Terra judgy gay dorm
p018 - SLE Structured Liberal Education One great book per week freshman year
- p019 - Eurotrash, first party of the year at Kappa Sigma, cancelled by university
http://wiki.keithl.com/StanfordRuleWorld
p020 - Party Review Committee, 6 departments, titles SUPER, OSE, SUDPS, RedEd, SUFMO, and FSL
- p020 - Harm Reduction Plan
- p021 - Stanford motto "Die Luft der Freiheit weht." Let the winds of freedom blow
- p022 - Officially, no noise more than 55dB after 10pm ... "average conversation is 70db" (refrigerator is 55dB?)
- inaccurate ... normal conversation 60 dB. Sleep is disrupted at 40 dB. Sleep in a dorm is essential, public conversation Debian User Forumsafter 10pm is disruptive and superfluous. A decent wall should reduce quiet conversation below audibility in a neighboring room
- p022 - Stanford Social Life Accelerator Task Force
- p022 - "all fun had disappeared". Try learning instead. Some of us still have fun learning 50 years after university.
p022 - grandfather Steve Glasser (legal educator) sounds like this Stephen Glasser p295 - Coda
- p023 - voracious reader
p025 - R.B. Brenner The Daily's advisory board
- p025 - Coupa Cafe main meeting place on campus - which one of six?
p028 - Mary, former The Daily editor-in-chief
- p028 - Lucy "US National Team athlete"
- p028 - Sigma Nu fraternity president Moritz Stephan
p031 - John Hennessy
p032 - Sigma Ephow many pages are published in the United Statessilon
p033 - Sam Catania editor of Stanford Daily
p035 - ch. 2 - The Impostor
p035 - Logan
p035 - Stanford Marriage Pact algorithmically match students using survey responses (p50)
p037 - congressional Republicans "120%? more semantically similar"
p037 - OpenAI's seminal 72 page Codex paper in 2021 (age 16 )
p038 - Lily Zhou 1 year younger
p039 - 16yo Software genius Nick
p040 - CS109 Weeder class
p040 - Stanford admission rate 3.6%
p041 - Stanford > $95K / yearbutton cell phone with backspace
p043 - bae
p043 - William Curry living in Harvard Dorm, imposter from Alabama
p044 - Alicia
p044 - Graham resident suspicious of Curry
p045 - Cassidy another news writer
p045 - Steve Jobs also "pre-habited" dorms at Reed before matriculation
- p050 - majority of Marriage Pact Stanford CS students would rather cheat than fail
p051 - Fizz discussion and news feed platform
p053 - ch. 3 - Coupa Circuit
p054 - TreeHacks
p055 - Sara
p055 - Vedant p67 p68 p81 p170
p058 - Ivan 23 yo "coupa circuit fixer"
- p059 - Sequoia, Lightspeed, Pear, CRV, Founders Fund, Accel, Social Capital, Spark Capital
p060 - D1 Sports
p063 - Julian
p063 - Lake Laguinita Yacht Club (no longer filled with scarce water)
p065 Tessler-Lavigne- BASES Business Association of Stanford Entreprenuerial Students ]]
p066 - Plucked
p066 - Friends and Family
p066 - Builders Society
p066 - Pear Garage
p066 - Floodgate Reactor
p066 - Interact Fellowship
p066 - ME410 Introductory Foresight and Technological Innovation
p066 - Mayfield Fellows Program
p066 - How to Rule The World secret class
p067 - Mansion in the hills
p068 - Parth
p068 - Jackson
p069 - FOTH Friend of the House
p069 - senior named George
p070 - Riya
p070 - Bruh
p071 - Jessica
p073 - Jacob
p073 - ch. 4 - Binary Bomb
p073 - PubPeer
p075 - Karsteh
p076 - Therac-25
p076 - Jerry Cain
p077 - SBF Sam-Bankman-Fried
p077 - Alameda Research
p078 - Rob Reich
p078 - Effective Altruism
p080 - Elizabeth Holmes
p080 - Tim Draper
p080 - Stanford - The Game]] [[
p081 - Juul
p083 - Elizabeth Bik Biology's Image Detective
- p084 type 1: identical duplications . type 2: shifted or rotated . type 3 duplication of sections, most likely intentional alteration
- p085 - "level of alteration that suggests an intent to mislead"
p087 - MTL ]button cell phone with backspace] [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrin
p087 - MTL UCSF, 2 years at Stanford, Genentech, 2011 President Rockefeller University 2016 President Stanford
p087 - PubPeer, post publication peer review
- p088 - Bik: nearly 4% of published studies include problematic figures
p088 - PubPeer and Retraction Watch blog
p089 - CS107 Binary Bomb
- p090-91 Lily
![/!\](/moin_static198/modernized/img/alert.png "/!\"){kind=small}
Edit conflict - other version:
p091 - friend Sergio Randy Schekman Hollis Cline
Edit conflict - your version:
p091 - friend Sergio Randy Schekman Hollis Cline
End of edit conflict
p094 - Davis Wright Tremaine top First Amendment law firm on the West Coast
p094 - R.B. Brenner
p094 - Tracy Jan at Washington Post
p095 - Michele graphics editor of Stanford Daily
p095 - Dee Mostofi Stanford spokesperson
p097 - Eric Stahl, a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine
p099 - ch. 5 - A Fucking Menacebutton cell phone with backspace
- p099 - "If I woke tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am right now."
- "from a Brit" ... actually Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) in "Christmas Vacation" 1989
p101 - Slack Channel
- p101 - Slack channel called "slay" for Stanford daily editors
- p102 - Stanford board of 33 trustees, no nonprofit leaders or other academics, mostly prominent business people
p102 - José E. Feliciano Puerto Rican businessman and investor
p103 - Science editor-in-chief Holden Thorp email, said Tessier-Lavigne contacted Science in 2015 (4 years before Thorp) requesting corrections, Science erred and did not issue corrections
- p103 - Theo Baker's rhetorical question "how could they have failed to publish corrections?"
- Science Magazine prints about a million words a year, far more offline, AAAS also prints five other journals
- Science Magazine fails to publish 99.999% (WAG) of all that is printed in the world.
Theo Baker's constructive response could be a "Letter to the Editor", not petulant, impatient demands of the editor-in-chief
- p104 - "a scientist in Tessier-Lavigne's field" mentioned concerns about some of these papers in the early 2000's
p105 - Special Committee of the Board Jerry Yang,Carol Lam,Jeffrey Stone,Jim Coulter,andFelix Baker
p105 - Nancy Olivieri well known whistleblower
- p105 only Felix Baker was scientist, PhD immunology from Stanford, avoids the press
p106 - Baker invested in Denali Therapeutics, cofounded by Tessier-Lavigne in 2015, conflict of interest
p106 - Aidan Ryan crisis communication executive at powerful Edelman public relations firm
p107 - Richard Smith former editor in chief of BMJ - British Medical Association Journal
p108 - David Chassin at SLAC
p108 - review by Kirkland & Ellis, largest revenue law firm in the world
p108 - Mark Filip chosen by Stanford
p109 - Filip represented BP in Deepwater Horizon spill, and other huge corporate scandal
p110 - Susan McConnell and husband Richard Scheller close friends of Tessier-Lavinge and wife Mary Hynes
p111 -202? Science and Cell Editorial Expressions of Concern
- p111 - Baker did not attempt heap allocator, B- for CS107 course
p112 - $29.2M civil fraud suit payment by Stanford professor Stan Cohen
p112 - invented recombinant DNA technology with Herb Boyer, who co-founded Genentech
Edit conflict - other version:
- p112 - Richard Scheller (p110)
Edit conflict - your version:
- p112 - Richard Scheller (p110)
End of edit conflict
p112 - Stanford earned hundreds of millions of dollars from 1980s Boyer-Cohen patents
- p113 - 62% of Stanford's total patent income
p113 - In 2016 Cohen claimed cure for Huntington's disease
p113 - Cohen claimed older compound HD106 compound treated for Huntington disease
- treatment for Psoriasis in 1970s?
- p114 - FDA withdrew approval in 1976 after drug caused loss of limbs and death
p114 - Cohen defrauded Alafi friends, and cheated on wife, hired girlfriend CITATION NEEDED
- p115 - Alafis won fraud lawsuit against Cohen, $29M paid 2022 December
- p115 - Stanford communications claimed no knowledge of lawsuit, legal very involved
- p116 - no punishment or condemnation for Cohen
- p116 - Cohen's lawyers send threat letter to author Baker and Stanford Daily editor Sam Catania
- p117 - Christmas gift from parents: "Theo Baker is a fucking menace!" T-shirt
p119 - ch. 6 - Rule
p119 - Derek "an adult version of Ivan" ???
p119 - Unicorn Founder of startup that reaches $1B valuation, only 0.5% do so
- footnote: 17% of all unicorns founded by Stanford alumni or facubutton cell phone with backspacelty
p120 - The Rosewood ≥$40K/night, "the modern clubhouse for Silicon Valley" on Sand Hill Road ... "a bunch of boring strip-mall offices near Stanford
p121 - "business facing" - tech services for Muammar el-Qaddafi
- p122 - Justin: no spot for Theo in cohort for quarter
- p122 VCs fund 1% of companies reviewed, higher ratio for Stanford students
p123 - SAFE Simple agreement for future equity, pre-seed funding for the right to buy
- p123 - pre-idea funding
p124 - Hacker Houses
p124 - student Builders
p125 - Ann Miura-Ko Twitch cofounder
p126 - Amber Yang The Space Junk Apocalypse seertracking.com ... defunct?
p127 - Noor Siddiqui NYT interview Orchid
- p128 - Justin first startup space-focused, angered VC funder
- Justin 129 130 131 132 133 134
- Janet 130 131 133 134 135 136
- p131 - Janet, Arjun
- p132 - Justin, Billy, Boris, Arjun
p132 - Italian company Luxottica controls eyewear industry (11 companies listed) LensCrafters brands
- p135 - Janet cheats on CS assignment, also estranged from East Coast family
p136 - Stanford Steve Blank Lean Launch Pad wikipedia
- p137 - Blank: 100% of entrepreneurs think they are visionaries, data say 99% aren't.
- p137 - Hennessy: most successful startups by grad students, not undergraduates
p137 - Elizabeth Holmes sophomore dropout for Theranos
- p138 Most VCs suck. 2% of VC firms generate 95% of industry's returns, average VC does not outperform average stock.
- p138 stampede is AI, was crypto before that, was virtual reality before that
- p138 Money focused on mythologized young founders
p139 Sam Altman dropped out of Stanford 2005, president Y Combinator, CEO OpenAI
- p139 Some parts of Stanford committed to progress, advancement, and ethics. Others expressed best motivations but actually behaved badly.
p141 - ch. 7 - Duck Syndrome
- p141 - "Turkey Drop:" relationships ending around Thanksgiving
- p141-2 Baker's failed relationship with Lily Zhou
p142 COVID still a thing in January 2023. 3400 deaths per week in the US, extrapolated from wikipedia graph
p143 - Situationships
- p143 - Lily
- p143 - Relationships among people my age at an all time low
p144 - Washington Post Philip Graham (reporting is) the first rough draft of history
- p144 - Stan Cohen Stanford professor fraud suit p112
- p146 - Frank, friend from high school flying in to spend 18th birthday weekend
p147 - death of Blake Hounshell, depression, suicide
mother's professional friend, helped revive Foreign Policy magazine
- p148 - small, abused by other school children
- p149 - Blake jumped off bridge "barely three blocks away" ... from parent's home?
- p150 - 30% of high school students experience depression, 20% contemplate suicide, 10% attempt it
- p151 - 10 to 24yo suicides increased 62% between 2007 and 2021, leading cause of preventable death
p151 - Duck Syndrome gliding across surface, paddling desperately below
p151 - Katie Meyer
- p152 - Frank, best friend from home
p153 - Theo Baker surprise birthday party at the Daily House
p155 - ch. 8 - Harriet the Spy
- p155 - MTL: " ... you can spot a Canadian on a crowded street ... the person who's saying please and thank you to the ATM machine."
- p156 MTL capable of immense rage, p157 singular ambition
p157 - netrin guides axon growth, 1994
p159 - gift authorship
- p160 - MTL provided reagents to other projects and authors, added as co-author for their paper
p161 - Review scientists Shirley Tilghman Steve Hyman Randy Schekman Hollis Cline Kafui Dzirasa
p162 - investigation of Stanford head football coach Troy T8aylor investigated twice, ESPN investigated and was sued by Taylor
p162 - parents of Sam Bankman-Fried, former dean of freshman and coercive sexual relationship with student
p163 - Stanford cofounder Jane Stanford poisoned 1905, husband buried truth
p164 - MTL collaborator Cori Bargmann
p165 - MTL collaborator Corey Goodman shared Gruber Prize
- p165 - author says MTL took a reagent from Goodman's lab and published before them
- p165 first "falsified panels" paper in Cell 1999, two others in Science 2001
p165 - Richard Scheller (p110) Stanford 1982 to 2001, then Genentech
- p165 - twenty years later, some colleagues said MTL had been nakedly careerist CITATION NEEDED
p166 - SLE Structured Liberal Education
p167 - arancini stuffed fried breaded riceballs
- p167 - dinner-mates say Sam Bankman-Fried directionally correct, "how do I get around this?"
- p168 - "spilled AI tea"??? "dishing" sharing gossip
p168 - freshman with half-baked idea wanted NDA before discussing it with Rob Reich
- p169 - idea secrecy paired with admissions of wrongdoing
p169 - "menage a trois" sandwiches
p169 - used Treehacks office after hours to serve corporate sponsors that The Stanford Daily would normally investigate
- p170 - going to Genentech interview, Baker sees MTL coming the other way
- p170 - walked out hours in a different universe. jackpot???
- with dates and days missing, it is difficult to track author's timeline. Jackpot when and how?
p173 - ch. 9 - NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION
p173 - 2009, MTL claims Alzheimer's was not amyloid beta, but N-APP fragment of APP binding to DR6 (tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily member 21, TNRFS21)
p174 - RETRACTED ARTICLE: APP binds DR6 to trigger axon pruning and neuron death via distinct caspases
- p175 - Big news splash, Genentech patents, fail to reproduce, fabricated data
- p175 - MTL deliberately hid paper's manipulations
- p176 - Genentech internal inquiry: not reproducable, "faked" using "made up" figures
- p177 - MTL wouldn't retract, walked back claims in two lower-readership journals
p177 - Anatoly Nikolaev
- p177 - Promotions for Nikolaev, MTL to Chief Scientific Officer
- p178 - Nikolaev left biotech, retrained at Michigan community college, Florida radiation oncologist
p179 - Genentech hired misconduct expert David Vaux
Edit conflict - other version:
- p179 - fourpreview senior Genentech people independently told the same story
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- p179 - fourpreview senior Genentech people independently told the same story
End of edit conflict
- p180 - Most sources offered deeply anguished views of MTK
- p181 - MTL never retracted, continued to cite paper
p181 - MTL joined Regeneron board, highest paid in the S&P 500, earned $80M
p181 - MTL cofounded Denali Theraputics in 2017, largest biotech IPO of the year
- p181 - MTL current net worth $500M
p182 - Baker shares writup with Washington Post science editor Tracy Jan and Glenn Kramon
- p183 - Journalism advice: "Kill your darlings" - remove superfluous detail, even if brilliantly written
- p184 - argues with Stanford Daily editor Sam Catania (p033)
Edit conflict - other version:
p184 - Journalism lecturer R. B. Brenner
Edit conflict - your version:
p184 - Journalism lecturer R. B. Brenner
End of edit conflict
p185 - DJing Disc jockey-ing (as a verb)
p185 - Daily staffer Marie
- p185 - Alondra Dorm mate Sylvia
p185 - Muwekma Ohlone bay area tribe
- p186 - Sylvia and drunk friend Darren
- p186 - single sexiest college sentence: "I don't have a roommate"
- p187 - Sergio again (p91) brilliant older friend and SLE resident tutor
p188 - Sam (Catania) editing Daily article
p189 - Daily board chair Andrew Bridges attorney at Fenwick & West
p189 - Ambika Kumar and Eric Stahl at Davis Wright Tremaine
p190 - HFO / hold-for-order articles, prewrites
p190 - Niko photographer
p191 - MTL's Volkswagen electric ID.4
p192 - Stanford Building 10 president's office
p194 - Persis Drell provost
- p196 - letter from attorney representing MTL
p197 - ch. 10 - The Good Paper
p197 - Charles Keating Jr. swimmer / financier / felon / S&L crisis / $4.3B civil judgement
p198 - Lawyer Steve Neal reversed Keating convictions
p199 - Cooley law firm represented Theranos Elizabeth Holmes, now MTL
- p199 - Threatening letter to Theo Baker
- p201 - 2009 N-APP paper described as incorrect in 2014 by MTL
p215 - ch. 11 - TreeHacks
p229 - ch. 12 - Solve for People
p242 - ch. 13 - Free to Speak
p257 - ch. 14 - No Room for Error
p265 - ch. 15 - Money Is a Rush
p279 - ch. 16 - Finis Origine Pendet
p295 - Coda
- p309 - NOTES