Theo Baker is journalist royalty, the son of The New York Times' Peter Baker and The New Yorker's Susan Glasser. And he's also an example of the apple not falling far from the tree. While just a freshman reporter at The Stanford Daily, Baker reported on accusations about Stanford's president that culminated in his resignation. For his investigative reporting, he became the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious George Polk Award.

Now, Baker comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to tell a story of money and power and excess for teenagers at Stanford—slush funds, shell companies, yacht parties. He arrived at Stanford impressed with the atmosphere—and the stratospheric level of academics. But he says he soon discovered a culture that embraced corner-cutting, excess and access with few safeguards to catch bad behavior.

He concluded that Stanford was less a school than a business, with an annual budget nearly twice that of Harvard or Yale and higher than those of 116 nations. And Baker says those of Stanford's students who could be identified as the next trillion-dollar startup founders were the prime product, and for them there were secret societies, "pre-idea" funding offers, and social calls from billionaires, all with the expectation that these young people would soon join the ruling elite. At the top of this operation was Stanford's president, and Baker will share how he learned about and pursued the story that would bring down the president of such an elite institution amid allegations of research misconduct.

Join us to hear the entire gripping story.