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Newsletter — Issue 5 — May 3, 2026
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This newsletter has been published by Engage Colorado.
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The Honest Assessment of Why Colorado has Lost Momentum as an Innovation Hub
Today Engage Colorado publishes the Honest Assessment.
The full report is now live at thehonestassessment.com. This newsletter is its introduction.
Read the Full Report →
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The Open Letter and This Report
In March 2026, a bipartisan coalition of Colorado tech and business leaders wrote an Open Letter, Ensuring Colorado's Innovation Future, expressing deep concern that the direction Colorado is heading threatens the long-term prosperity of the people who call Colorado home.
The letter was addressed to Governor Polis, Senator Bennet, Senator Hickenlooper, Attorney General Weiser, and Mayor Johnston. Over 350 founders, investors, operators, and community builders added their support to the Open Letter.
The Open Letter identified nine actions and offered the coalition's partnership in advancing them. Item #3 specifically called for:
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"Conduct a thorough and honest assessment of the structural, regulatory, legislative, and rhetorical factors contributing to Colorado being categorized by founders, investors, and business leaders as an environment losing ground to competing states — not only for technology investment and company formation, but also for company retention, headquarters relocation, and inclusion on shortlists for expansion and capital deployment."
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Today's Honest Assessment is a first draft of that work. It was prepared by Dan Caruso and includes feedback from other members of the grassroots coalition. We welcome additional feedback.
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A Note on Intent and Approach
The purpose of the Honest Assessment is to document, as objectively and precisely as the available evidence permits, the structural, regulatory, legislative, and rhetorical factors that founders, investors, and business leaders weigh when deciding where to live, build, and deploy capital — and how Colorado is perceived along those dimensions.
The report does not advocate for specific policy changes. It does not represent the platform of any party or the agenda of any interest group. The factors documented are the factors decision-makers themselves consistently identify as driving their geographic preferences.
Many of the policies examined here were adopted in pursuit of objectives that reasonable people consider important: worker protections, environmental stewardship, affordable housing, technology accountability, and social equity among them. These are not trivial goals, and the report does not treat them as such.
The trade-offs are real. Policies that make a state more attractive to capital deployment may come at a cost to other priorities a state's citizens value. Conversely, policies that advance social objectives may carry economic consequences that are not always fully factored in. Honest governance requires acknowledging both sides of that ledger.
What the report does assert — on the strength of the evidence — is that Colorado's current trajectory is producing measurable consequences: companies leaving, capital being deployed elsewhere, and founders choosing other states. Whether those consequences are an acceptable price for the policies producing them is a judgment that belongs to Colorado's political leadership and ultimately its voters. But making that judgment requires knowing the facts. The Honest Assessment is an attempt to lay them out clearly, without partisan framing, so that the conversation can proceed from a shared understanding of what is actually happening.
The diagnostic comes first. The conversation about what to do with it comes next.
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The twelve-factor framework founders, investors, and executives use when deciding where to build
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The national pattern across the states attracting capital and the states losing it
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Colorado's scorecard — current and trajectory across all twelve factors
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The data behind the scoring: IRS migration figures, corporate relocation records, venture capital deployment trends, and three independent business surveys
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The Open Letter signatories — 350 and counting
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The Best Hand in America
I have spent a career in the Colorado tech ecosystem, and I have never been more certain of two things at once. The data in this report is sobering. And Colorado is still holding the best hand in America to start, build, and back a technology company. Both are true. The work ahead is putting the diagnosis on the table so the people with the platforms can move from acknowledging the problem to acting on it.
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Share with your network
The conversation about Colorado's future cannot stay inside the audience already paying attention.
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What Engage Colorado Stands For
Engage Colorado stands for what is best for all Coloradans over the long term — a Colorado that leads the country in opportunity and innovation, governed from the center rather than the divisive extremes of either national party. That mission includes publishing and advancing the work needed to keep that vision alive. The Honest Assessment is the foundation. The conversation continues.
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