Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference6 Okt

Theo Baker in Conversation with Vinson Cunningham: “How to Rule the World”

As a freshman reporter for the Stanford student newspaper, Theo Baker received a tip. Most students would have let it go. But he didn't. What he discovered was a research misconduct scandal so significant that – by the time Theo had finished reporting and writing about it -- it forced the resignation of Stanford's president Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a celebrated neuroscientist and biotech executive worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Theo was nineteen at the time – he’s only 21 now – and the quality and impact of his reporting led to him being awarded a Polk Award that year, making him the youngest person ever to receive one of journalism’s most prestigious awards. Theo’s memoir, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, is both a wild, often darkly funny takedown of Stanford’s culture of tech primacy and a case study in what real investigative journalism requires: patience, skepticism, and the willingness to challenge people and institutions far more powerful than yourself. Joining him in conversation for this episode of Beyond the Page -- recorded live at the 2026 Writers Conference -- is Vinson Cunningham, staff writer and critic at The New Yorker as well as a gifted novelist, whose own sharp eye for institutions and the people who run them makes him the ideal person to draw out this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Episoder(63)

MICHAEL POLLAN’S JOURNEY INTO CONSCIOUSNESS

In this episode of Beyond the Page, Michael Pollan talks to Sun Valley Writers Conference Literary Director John Burnham Schwartz about his bestselling book A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousne...

23 Sep 32min

Ruth Reichl – The Paris Novel

RUTH REICHL, one of our best-known and most well-loved food writers, is the author of five memoirs, including Tender at the Bone and Save Me the Plums. But she is also a captivating novelist, and, as...

29 Mai 32min

Dan Jones - WHAT THE MIDDLE AGES HAS DONE FOR THE MODERN WORLD

Did you know that Edward III’s last parliament invented impeachment? That cancel culture in universities actually began at Oxford and in Paris in the 14th Century? That Edward II’s parties would have ...

6 Mar 33min

SALMAN RUSHDIE: WRITER IN THE WORLD

In this episode, recorded live at the 2025 Conference, Salman Rushdie, having received the Sun Valley Writers' Conference Writer in the World Prize, talks with his fellow novelist and great friend Col...

12 Feb 32min

EVAN OSNOS: “The Haves and Have-Yachts”

In this episode of Beyond the Page, recorded live at the 2025 Writers Conference, New Yorker staff writer and National Book Award-winning author Evan Osnos dives into the bold-faced, always entertaini...

17 Jan 31min

Doris Kearns Goodwin: “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s”

BEYOND THE PAGE Doris Kearns Goodwin: “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s” In this episode – recorded live at the 2025 Writers Conference – Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of Americ...

15 Des 202529min

Ocean Vuong "The Emperor of Gladness"

In this episode – recorded live at the 2025 Writers Conference – I have an intimate conversation, in front of 1500 people, with the novelist and poet Ocean Vuong. When he was two years old, in 1990, O...

11 Nov 202527min