Theo Baker

But on the flip side, the certain cohort of people at Stanford, you know, like the guy who taught me how to shotgun a beer freshman year, drops out six months after he starts his company.

It's valued at over a billion dollars, right?

It's been so fascinating to watch that play out here at Stanford because it's sort of a supercharged version of a story that's playing out, you know, across the rest of the country.

So Marc-Tessier Levine, six months after he was ousted by his own board because of his

Oversight of research and his highly aggressive public posture when faced with these questions.

Six months later raises the largest seed round in the history of biotech, a billion dollars for his new company, which is riding the tidal wave of funding for anything AI.

They're going to use AI for drug discovery.

And two of the VCs who are leading the round, who have invested into Mark Tessitian's companies, turned out to be ones that I got to know over freshman year in the Stanford inside Stanford.

And both of their firms continue to be friendly with me.

And one of them invites me to an event two months later with an investor texting me.

And this is a verbatim quote.

It's etched into my brain.

So this is verbatim.

The text message read, hey, Theo, when you aren't too busy knocking university presidents off their perches into the hands of VCs willing to fund them for a B, you should join, winky face.

And then a partner from the other firm reaches out to offer me money, too, if I wanted to start a company, right?

Because that's how Silicon Valley works.

Are you never tempted?

I mean, I think at this point, like, I've committed to journalism, you know, that I've been...

I've been faced with tough challenges when it comes to journalism and made the decision to keep going with it.

You know, I'm really interested to see.