There’s no course number. No public enrollment.

Students get in through referrals, then instructor Justin Lewis-Weber personally whittles the candidates down to six men and six women.

Just 12 students. Ten weeks. Invitation only.

And what are these carefully selected Stanford students learning?

How power works.

How to find weaknesses in bureaucracies. How to maneuver around official channels. How to get what they want from systems — and the people inside them.

The unofficial seminar has a predictably chilling name:

So You Think You Can Rule the World?

But students just call it “Rule.”

Your Rundown for Monday, August 31, 2026...

Father Knows Best?

One of Rule’s former students might sound familiar: Phoebe Gates.

The 23-year-old daughter of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates graduated from Stanford in 2024. While there, she joined Rule’s exclusive ranks and later tapped the seminar’s network to recruit for her startup, Phia.

This summer, the fashion shopping app Phia came under scrutiny over a practice known as “cookie stuffing.”

Here’s an explanation.

When a website or app sends a shopper to an online store, it can earn a cut of the sale.

But Bloomberg found that Phia’s browser extension could insert its own tracking code just before a shopper made a purchase — making it look as though Phia deserved the commission.

In other words, Phia could get paid for a sale it didn’t generate.

After Phia disabled the features in July, according to Bloomberg, its average daily revenue dropped from about $80,000 to between $10,000 and $28,000.

Young Phoebe, of course, isn’t the only Gates who has figured out how to work the system.

Her father has just operated on a slightly larger scale.

In 2024, Bill Gates reportedly gave around $50 million to Future Forward USA Action, the nonprofit arm of the main super PAC supporting Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

As investments go, Gates has made better ones.

But the donation was striking for another reason. Gates spent years largely avoiding enormous partisan political contributions.

Today, the Democratic coalition Gates was trying to help elect in 2024 is home to a growing socialist movement — deeply suspicious of men exactly like him.

Bill Gates is practically Exhibit A for what’s wrong with American capitalism if you’re a democratic socialist.

He’s worth well north of $100 billion. He’s built one of the most influential public-health organizations on Earth. And when he personally decided the 2024 presidential election mattered, he reportedly dropped $50 million to back his candidate.

Democratic Socialists of America would look at all that wealth and power concentrated in one man and say: He’s the problem.

But for all their differences, America’s billionaire class and an energized socialist movement seem to share one enormous assumption.

Put enough power in the right hands… and the right people can “fix” things.

Gates wanted Harris in the White House. DSA wants Bill’s wealth redistributed.

Different “fixes.” Same confidence that they know best.

Which brings us back to Stanford’s seminar for sociopaths…

So You Think You Can Rule the World?

Maybe the most chilling word isn’t “Rule.”

Instead, put the emphasis on YOU.

[I’ll leave you with a question, reader. Who worries YOU more: billionaires or the politicians promising to protect you from billionaires?]

Market Rundown for Monday, August 31, 2026

S&P 500 futures are down 0.25% to 7,700.

Oil’s up 3.55% to $86.38 for a barrel of WTI.

Gold is down 0.50% to $4,506.60 per ounce.

And Bitcoin’s down 0.55% to $78,400.