Guest Post: A Conversation With the Steyer Kids

Over the next few days, we’ll be doing something a little different. Instead of hearing from Tom himself, we’re turning his Substack over to the people who know him best so you can hear from them directly. We want to give you a glimpse into the Tom we know—not the candidate, the billionaire, the businessman—but the person we’ve all come to know and respect.

And who better to tell us than his own kids? We asked Sam, Henry, and Gus* about their dad’s quirks, his mottos for life, and the things that light him up (spoiler alert: it’s the Pacific Ocean). Let’s just say, we knew Tom was the right person to lead California before we talked to his kids—and we’re even more certain of it now.

TS Campaign: It’s got to be kind of tough watching your dad get discussed in public. People are saying things about him that don’t necessarily reflect the person you know. What do you wish more Californians knew about your dad?

Sam: I don’t mind people being critical of my dad. I think that’s par for the course. But I wish they knew how idealistic my dad is. He is a very earnest, morally driven person. And I think people assume that, as a businessperson, he’s doing these cynical or calculated things. And he really isn’t. He really is trying to do what he thinks is right.

TS Campaign: Can you give us some examples of that?

Sam: I’ll give you a couple. When I was about ten years old, my dad and I were in San Francisco. And he bought one of those newspapers that unhoused people used to sell. But he didn’t just buy the paper and walk away. He stayed and chatted. And I remember that being really impactful for me. He was always finding ways to show us, you may be a privileged kid, but you aren’t apart from anyone. You don’t get to look past anyone.

And then I’d say another example was, when he was becoming kind of a famous person in the business world, he went out of his way to downplay it; to make sure I knew that making money wasn’t the most important thing to him; that being successful wasn’t the most important thing to him. And that, if anything, he was eager to dedicate himself fully to public service.

TS Campaign: Does your dad have any quirks? What is he like off the campaign trail?

Sam: There was a period where every year at Christmas he would give each of us a nice white button down shirt. He’d be really proud and say: What’s something you can really use? A clean, nice, white button down shirt. Have you guys ever thought about that? And I’d be like, yes, I thought about it last Christmas when you gave me the same present. He gave us white button down shirts every Christmas for five years in a row.

Gus: There was also the year he gave us those strange fedora hats.

Henry: Yeah, he sometimes gets us gifts that make no sense. Once, he got me a jasper-carved armadillo for my birthday. I was probably 20 years old and I was in my room playing video games with my two best friends. And he came in super excited, handed it to me, and then just left the room. And we’re like, what? But his excitement was infectious.

Another quirk that gives us a great amount of joy is, him and our sister will go back and forth quoting old poems and books. But for some reason when it comes to great movie quotes, they don’t stick in his head. But he loves them, so he’ll just very enthusiastically say something that is just not at all what the movie quote was. The most common one is, “My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius” from Gladiator. He just butchers the whole thing.

Gus: He would reuse a lot of our clothes. In particular, there’s a shirt that Henry got at summer camp that said “Playaz Only” on the back. Remember that one? He would just wear it around.

Sam: Three years later we would see him at an event and he’d be wearing that shirt.

TS Campaign: What was your dad like as a parent?

Sam: He was very committed to us having to make our own decisions. When I was a junior in college, I did an investment banking summer internship and I got an offer to come back full time. I went to my dad and I was like, you’ve worked in finance. Should I do this? And he was very committed to not telling me what to do. When I ended up not doing it, he was all, you definitely shouldn’t have done it. And I was like, why didn’t you tell me that? But he always wanted us to learn to make our own decisions.

Gus: And if you made commitments or choices, there was a sense that you had to honor those. When I was in third or fourth grade, my two best friends and I went to camp. And I got homesick immediately. So I was sending back letters saying take me home, I hate it here. But my parents said, you can’t quit halfway through a commitment. You said you would go, and you have to honor your commitments.

TS Campaign: What are your dad’s hobbies? What does he like to do in his spare time?

Sam: He plays tennis every day. He plays soccer. He has run marathons with my mom. He just loves sports and being outdoors. Body surfing. Hiking.

He also reads like crazy. He watches a lot of westerns. And he just has a lot of friends. He’s a very social guy. He still has a bunch of friends from when he was a kid. For 30 something years, he’s been hosting this holiday lunch for his friends. Everyone brings a poem to read.

Gus: Yeah. He watches those westerns religiously.

Sam: You are named Gus after Augustus McCrae from Lonesome Dove.

Gus: Yeah, exactly.

Henry: When he’s not running for governor, he also goes to church once or twice a week, and enjoys it. He speaks quite frequently at church.

Gus: He loves hiking. I think he has almost a romantic-era idea of the outdoors and the majesty of it. If he can see the Pacific Ocean, he’ll just stand in front of it and go, Oh, that’s amazing!

Henry (imitating Tom): The greatest ocean in the world!

Gus: He says that all the time.

Henry: It’s unfortunate.

Sam: Is that like a Rolling Stones joke?

But yeah, he loves the outdoors. There are these really cool red and yellow oily stones in Lake Tahoe called jaspers. And he sometimes carries jaspers with him in his pocket at work to remind him of the natural world.

TS Campaign: What has made you most proud of your dad in this campaign?

Gus: His commitment to his principles to me is very impressive. He’s been working on climate issues for a long time. But I think we’re in a moment in politics when climate is not necessarily a hot issue. And he continues to prioritize it even though it might not be politically advantageous. I also think he saw very early on the dangers to our democracy posed by this administration. A lot of politicians just ride the wave of the zeitgeist, and then look back and try to explain what happened. But I think my dad has been very principled.

Sam: I totally agree with that. I mean, in general I think it’s been an amazing campaign. Every issue is complicated and has a lot of nuance. So it’s very easy for politicians to take a high level stance on something without actually explaining what they’ll do. But my dad deals in the real world. He figures things out granularly and realistically enough to actually accomplish the goal.

When he was on the Volts podcast with Dave Roberts, they talked for an hour about how to reduce electricity prices. My dad was so in the weeds about the three big investor-owned utilities in California—what return on equity they had gotten in their latest rate case, how much you could cut it, how much money it would save people, and how the incentive structure works. The difference between that and just being like, I’m for lower electricity rates is huge.

I also have three kids and my oldest is five and he had his preschool graduation yesterday. And 12 days before the election, my dad was there from 9:00am to 1:00pm, just spending time with my son and supporting the family. I think that’s a real testament to his character.

TS Campaign: Are there any dad jokes, Tom-isms, or things your dad says regularly that are sort of his calling card?

Henry: He has so many nicknames for everybody. For Gus: Chumba Wumba, Gubsta G. For Sam: Samo, Samwise, Samwise Gamgee. For Evi: Bevski, Bevilinski, Ev Bev. For me, Henri, Enrique or Henski. He doesn’t call any of us by our name.

He also does the thing where he kind of comes up and shadow boxes with you.

Sam: When we were kids, he invented these characters, Benny the Bullfrog and Newton the newt. They had very strong New York accents. Do you guys remember this?

Henry: Yeah, very well.

Sam: He has a lot of catchphrases. He loves to say, Looking good. Billy Ray! when he sees someone. Or if you’re going somewhere he’ll say, Lead on McDuff! And then I finally saw Macbeth in high school or something and I think it’s actually, Lay on, McDuff.

Henry: We get shushed at restaurants sometimes because our dad and Evi are singing too loudly, which has happened multiple times.

Gus: He loves “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Sam: He and my mom have hosted a Christmas Eve dinner with the same people for my whole life. And they were always like, what Christmas Carol does everyone want to hear? And then they play Battle Hymn of the Republic. I’m like, it’s really not a Christmas carol.

Also, when my oldest son was younger, he was really into Paw Patrol. And the villain of Paw Patrol is this evil, incompetent mayor named Mayor Humdinger. And my dad joined us for Halloween one year dressed as Mayor Humdinger. (Pausing) As governor, he’d be very different.

Gus: I don’t know if he intends this as a catch phrase, but he has a thing where, after you’re hanging out with someone or you’re just discussing someone, he’ll say, “He’s such an ace! He’s a real ace!”

Henry: The funniest thing is he says it about people he’s known for 15 years. It’ll be my best friend since I was five years old. I’m like, what do you mean?!?

TS Campaign: Any final thoughts?

Sam: Just that my dad loves California so much. He thinks California is the best place in the world. He is obsessed with how positive and generous and earnest Californians are. He loves to tell stories about how Californians are better at hiking than New Yorkers. He talks about how Berkeley was the most important university of the 20^th century. He just really loves California.

*Evi, the fourth Steyer sibling, cannot currently participate in state-level political activities given her current professional obligations. She worked closely with Tom in the climate finance world for many years before he commenced his gubernatorial campaign.