An advertising blitz has made Tom Steyer’s progressive platform and candidacy for governor common knowledge among Californians; the man behind the campaign, less so. He hoped to close that gap during an interview with the Lutrinae last week.
Born and raised in New York City, Steyer was 24 when he first came to California to study business at Stanford. It wasn’t long, he says, before he “fell in love with the place, fell in love with the people, fell in love with a girl” – experiences that led him to get married and raise four children in the state he’s called home ever since.
Before that, Steyer’s heart belonged to the soccer team he captained at Yale. The role took up the bulk of his free time while earning his undergraduate degree. Yet it was his economic and political science studies there that foretold the direction his life would take: “I was incredibly interested in whether our system actually worked for people and whether it would work long term.”
Steyer’s 27-year career as founder of Farallon Capital, the San Francisco-based hedge fund where he earned his fortune, has been subject to intense scrutiny; unsurprisingly, the money-first nature of his work there gives many progressives within his would-be voter base pause. He now admits that the career path wasn’t just contrary to his personal values: it was contrary to the way he was raised.
“I’m from a family that basically measures success in life on, ‘what did you do that has a positive impact for the world and your community?’ So I was the weird person. I started a business,” said Steyer, whose father prosecuted Nazis at the Nuremberg trials and mother taught remedial reading at a jail in Brooklyn. “Eventually, I just had to leave. And I was dying to leave.”
The unusual decision to walk away from a highly profitable business career in 2012, and his subsequent about-face toward environmental advocacy and green energy investment, paints Steyer as something of a real-life Ebenezer Scrooge. Yet three festive ghosts can’t take credit for his apparent crisis of conscience. Instead, it was Farallon’s foray into private prison investments between 2004 and 2006 – a controversial decision that drew sharp criticism, including from Steyer’s alma mater Yale – that sounded a wake-up call for him.
“I felt like I’m living this very narrow life that doesn’t actually meet what I see as a meaningful, impactful, successful life,” he said. “So for the past 14 years, that’s what I’ve been doing…trying to push for economic, environmental justice, trying to stand up for what’s right.”
Many Californians may find it hard to take his word for it. “Everybody makes mistakes” is far from a satisfactory answer when it comes to prison investments, especially given that the prison firm Farallon invested in now operates detention centers used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yet Steyer believes his track record since leaving and divesting from Farallon speaks for itself.
“We’ve done an awful lot of stuff, and that’s what I’ve wanted to do. And that’s why I’m running for government, because I feel like someone’s got to stand up to corporate special interests on behalf of working people.”
Steyer emphasizes the importance of California’s public higher education system – the largest in the nation and, in his opinion, “greatest in the world.” Affordability for CSUs and UCs is among the issues he hopes to address if elected.
“I am absolutely fanatical about the idea that as many in-state kids should go to [college] as possible, at as low a cost as possible,” said Steyer. “Does everybody want free education? Hell yes. Do we have to pay for that? Hell yes.”
“Tax me more. I’ve been saying it for a long time,” Steyer tweeted in December. Yet his plans to increase state revenue if elected involve more than just wealth taxes. Inspired by a blend of progressivism and business savvy, he proposes creative solutions like taxing AI calculations and closing specific corporate tax loopholes.
“I am a very progressive person…I’m also a very practical person. I’m not just talking,” he said. “We need results in the state of California, not just fancy talk. And you’ve had a lot of fancy talk.”
Steyer’s decision to interview with the Lutrinae wasn’t random. The 68 year-old hopes to demonstrate to young voters – many of whom have become disengaged from politics in recent years – that his campaign is centered around their future, from affordability to environmentalism.
“You should take yourself really seriously. I take you very seriously. And I take all young Californians who are trying to make this place better very seriously,” said Steyer. “My belief is, we need the voice of young people. We need the votes of young people, and if they’ll just look at what I’m talking about, it very much is directed at young people in the future.”