The Stanford Freshmen Who Think They Rule the World - The Atlantic

Silicon Valley venture capitalists are wining and dining 18-year-olds.

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. Updated at 8:22 a.m. ET on April 25, 2026. W hen I was a freshman at Stanford University, I learned to shotgun a beer from a guy in a frat. Soon after, he dropped out and started an AI company. Six months later, it was valued at more than $1 billion. For most students, Stanford is a normal competitive school, where people go to class and coffee shops and fall in love and freak out over finals. But a select few attend something else: a Stanford inside Stanford, where venture capitalists pursue 18- and 19-y

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• Cynthia Wang

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