Tom Steyer: An Inconvenient Billionaire - Men's Journal

Tom Steyer is the kind of all-American overachiever who seems to exist only on paper: number one in his graduating class at Phillips Exeter Academy, summa cum laude and captain of the soccer team at Yale, a Stanford MBA who became a superstar at Goldman Sachs and then went on to create the world's fourth-largest hedge fund, turning $8 million into $30 billion in about 20 years. His personal fortune is estimated at $1.5 billion. So it's a bit startling when the human résumé comes bounding out of a narrow brownstone in San Francisco's Pacific Heights on a cool spring morning, pale legs exposed by knee-length shorts, wearing white socks with black trail-runners. With his flop of copper-blond hair and his shaggy enthusiasm for a 7 am hike, he seems less like a Rockefeller than a golden retriever ready for his run. "Good morning!" he booms. As billionaires go, Steyer doesn't conform to type. He drives an outdated hybrid Honda Accord and wears a cheap Ironman watch with a Velcro band. His "b

Tom Steyer is the kind of all-American overachiever who seems to exist only on paper: number one in his graduating class at Phillips Exeter Academy, summa cum laude and captain of the soccer team at Yale, a Stanford MBA who became a superstar at Goldman Sachs and then went on to create the world's fourth-largest hedge fund, turning $8 million into $30 billion in about 20 years. His personal fortune is estimated at $1.5 billion. So it's a bit startling when the human résumé comes bounding out of a narrow brownstone in San Francisco's Pacific Heights on a cool spring morning, pale legs exposed b