Prediction Open · timeframe Mar 2028
Steyer: The US is not going to adopt single-payer healthcare
“The key issue in this primary campaign seems to be whether we're going to have single payer healthcare, which anyone with a brain in their head knows we're not going to have single payer healthcare.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Steyer: Every company, even ExxonMobil, will eventually become a climate company
“Every company, Exxon, is going to be a climate company. No question about it.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Steyer: Siting and construction delays mean nuclear fusion won't impact until 2040
“And I think people feel as if they can break through on the engineering in the next 10 years, then that would have real impact, because then you have to site, build, plants. That takes a really long time. I'm sure there'd be a lot of pressure to do it faster. …”
Opinion
Steyer: The climate crisis requires profitable transition investments, not fossil fuel divestment
“This is not the time for divest. This is the time for invest. The answer here is Making profitable investments in the transition to make it happen faster and to ride the wave of demand that is that transition.”
Insight
Steyer: Mediocre hires cannot be trained into performing excellent work
“You can't fake excellence. If you're going to hire somebody, if they're not excellent coming in, they're not going to do an excellent job. That is an overwhelming fact of life, and that is something that I'm not sure everybody believes right now, but that is s…”
Opinion
Steyer: Running for president is not grueling, just get a real job
“People always say it's so grueling. I was like, really? You think this is grueling? Get a job. It's not grueling. It's super fun.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2050
Steyer: India will generate five times more electricity in 2050 than today
“If you look at India, they're going to have five times as much electricity in 20 50 as they have now.”
Assertion Supported
Steyer: Diesel generator power costs 10 times more per kWh than solar
“A diesel generator, which of course was fossil fuel, and it also emits a lot of not particularly healthful emissions from burning the diesel, but also is obviously a big emitter of CO₂, costs 10 times as much per kilowatt hour as solar.”
Insight
Steyer: Investors do not get paid for degree of difficulty
“In investing, you don't get paid for degree of difficulty. Making a straightforward good investment that you have high confidences is good. You don't have to do the triple flip half gainer in investing to make a good decision. You can make a simple decision. D…”
Insight
Steyer: Organizations over 125 people cannot be managed informally
“If you get beyond a 125 people, you really can't manage informally. You have to have systems and processes and hierarchies and rules.”
Prediction Held up
Steyer predicts long-term energy storage systems will be viable by 2033
“Over the next 10 years, we'll have storage systems that enable us to do long-term storage”
Assertion Supported
Steyer: Americans Recycle Only 6% of Plastics as Consumption Explodes
“Even though we recycle only six percent of our plastics, the use of plastics is exploding.”
Insight
Steyer: Real estate retrofits require proving owners will be richer by retrofitting
“For it to really happen, you have to be able to prove that you're going to be richer if you do the retrofit than if you don't do the retrofit”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steyer: 10% of US wealth clients request ESG versus 90% in Europe
“In the United States, if you talk to the huge asset gatherers, the Black Rocks, the Goldmans, if they get a new investment client, so they come in and they're going to have an investment advisor, and they're going to allocate their portfolio, 10% of them want …”
Disclosure
Steyer discloses family regenerative cattle ranch designed to net sequester carbon
“Our family has a regenerative cattle ranch. We wanted to prove you could raise cattle in a way that net sequesters carbon.”
Insight
Steyer: Ranches exist to generate profits for John Deere, not ranchers
“These ranches are not businesses. They live, as far as I can tell, to buy equipment from John Deere, an international harvester, and I would like to buy stock. In John Deere and International Harvester, because it's very clear to me about who's making all the …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steyer managed half of Goldman's risk arb but earned 0.1% of profits
“My last year at Goldman Sachs, just to put it in a context of investment, I was running half of the investments for the art group. They paid me one 10th of one percent of the income from the art group.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steyer: Hellman & Friedman backed Farallon launch with $8M seed commitment
“When I asked two different people if they would basically back me with limited partner money, one of them was a firm in San Francisco where the number three person was my old roommate. It's called Hellman and Friedman, and I think they guaranteed me eight mill…”
Assertion Supported
Steyer: Goldman Sachs had zero China staff and two in Hong Kong in 1983-1985
“Goldman Sachs, which was, as I said, I think the premier investment bank in the world, when I worked there in 1983 to 1985, had zero people in China and two people in Hong Kong.”
Assertion Partly supported
Steyer telegraphed Farallon Capital's leadership succession eight years in advance
“One is I was very clear for years before I left at the end of 2012 that the person who was going to take over was Andrew Spokes. And so that was no surprise to anybody. I said it for eight years beforehand.”
Assertion Partly supported
Steyer: Only 10% of DRC's 100 million people have access to electricity
“I think the DRC has about a hundred million people, the Democratic Republic of Congo, 10% of those people have access to electricity.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Steyer: Farallon eventually became Goldman Sachs's largest clearing client
“And then over time, I was Goldman's biggest clearing customer.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Steyer: Goldman's risk arb desk was profitable every year in the 1970s
“But the Goldman Arb group managed to make money every year through the seventies.”
Tom Steyer