Engage Colorado - Where Colorado Stands and What Comes Next (4 of 4)

Newsletter — Issue 38 — Tuesday, August 11, 2026

This newsletter has been published by Engage Colorado.

A Four-Part Recap · Part 4 of 4

Where Colorado Stands — And What Comes Next

This Engage Colorado Newsletter reflects the personal opinions of Dan Caruso, written with the support of the Caruso Ventures team. The Ensuring Colorado's Innovation Future Coalition did not review and has not endorsed this Engage Colorado Newsletter.

Where We Left Off

In Part 1 of 4, we recapped the Open Letter coalition — now 552 signatories. In Part 2 of 4, we recapped The Honest Assessment — the diagnostic report that anchors this series. And in Part 3 of 4, we walked through the Innovation Vision for Colorado and the Colorado voices weighing in through The Bear Roars podcast.

Today concludes the recap. Before turning to the category-by-category walk of where Colorado stands after nine factors, a personal note on my primary focus.

A Note on Culture, Community, and Tulagi

As most of you know, these Engage Colorado newsletters are anything but my primary area of focus. Through my Caruso Ventures platform, I focus on tech investing and community building.

The Innovation Vision for Colorado is:

Art, artists, and culture are what make a community ripe for innovation — and also what bring people together. Sundance Film Festival's arrival in Boulder and the third year of Outside Days in Denver have added to Colorado's rich cultural tradition, which already includes Red Rocks Amphitheater, Aspen Ideas Fest, Aspen Jazz Fest, the Bolder Boulder, and Telluride Film Festival.

A big focus of Caruso Ventures is Tulagi, the new name of the Boulder Roots Music Fest. For decades, Tulagi on the Hill was among the most important small music venues in the world, hosting artists such as the Eagles, REO Speedwagon, Muddy Waters, Linda Ronstadt, and even our 2026 Tulagi headliner Big Head Todd & the Monsters. Tulagi is a celebration of the music and culture that makes Boulder and Colorado a special community.

Boulder Theater, eTown Hall, Velvet Elk, Hotel Boulderado / License 1, KGNU, Cbar, Pizzeria Alberico, and more will be featured. We are weaving in other artists throughout the festival — painters, performing arts, comedy, and film. We will also film The Bear Roars podcast — including an episode with Sundance CEO Dave Linde — in front of a live Tulagi audience.

Please consider joining us for this epic weekend — Thursday through Sunday, August 27–30, 2026.

Tulagi Fest: boulderrootsmusicfest.org

Founders Experience: boulderrootsmusicfest.org/founders-experience

Part 4 of 4

Where Colorado Stands — Category by Category

This Engage Colorado series has followed the structure of The Honest Assessment — four main categories, each with three factors. It has now covered all of Categories 1, 2, and 3, and has begun Category 4. Below is where each category stands.

Category 1

The Foundation

Colorado's foundational strengths — quality of life, research capacity, tech workforce, aerospace and quantum leadership, and the outdoor economy — score higher than both peer clusters.

Colorado is extraordinarily well positioned to be the most attractive innovation ecosystem in the world. No other state combines Colorado's institutional depth, its physical and cultural quality of life, and its genuine leadership in the sectors that will define the global economy for the next two decades. If Colorado fully seizes this position, the economic and cultural prosperity that leadership creates would benefit every Coloradan.

This is precisely why the current trajectory matters so much: Colorado has more to lose than any Departure state — and more to gain than any state currently competing for the win.

Category 2

The Business and Political Climate

Colorado sits at 1.9 current, 1.4 trajectory — essentially indistinguishable from the Departure Geographies, and nowhere near the Destinations. Across three factors, the picture is consistent.

Colorado's political rhetoric toward business (2a) has trended toward framing employers as adversaries rather than partners, and 67% of Colorado business leaders now say the state is headed in the wrong direction. State–federal friction (2b) is unique among the fifty states — both of Colorado's U.S. Senators, the current Attorney General (who is the presumptive next Governor), and the current Secretary of State (who is the presumptive next Attorney General) are all showing extreme adversarial posture toward the federal administration, with real dollar consequences for companies operating here. And on state investment in economic development (2c), Colorado has no apparatus comparable to Texas's $878 million Enterprise Fund.

Category 3

Cost and Tax Trajectory

Colorado is drifting deeper into Departure territory on all three factors.

On tax (3a), Colorado's 4.40% flat rate is middle-of-the-pack today, but every Destination Geography is on a glide path down; Colorado is on a glide path up — and founders price the trajectory, not the current rate. On cost of living (3b), Denver runs 13.5% above the national average, Boulder 41%, and CNBC ranks Colorado 47th of 50 nationally. On forward spending (3c), Colorado's state spending is growing faster than population plus inflation — and faster than revenue — the gap that founders read as a signal of future tax increases or service cuts, and a clear red flag to innovators evaluating where to build.

Category 4 · In Progress

The Regulatory Landscape

The most recent issue in the drivers series covered 4a, cumulative employment regulation — from the FAMLI Act's 86% local-government opt-out, to Nike, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, and Drizly publicly excluding Colorado from remote job postings, to HB 22-1317's $101,250 non-compete threshold, to the 2024–25 mandate stacking pattern.

Two factors remain: 4b — Technology Regulation (coming next) — Colorado's worst single-factor score in the entire framework — and 4c — Public Safety and Visible Urban Order (coming later).

What Comes Next

Two factors remain in the drivers series: 4b — Technology Regulation and 4c — Public Safety and Visible Urban Order. Once those two are covered, the diagnostic work of The Honest Assessment will be complete.

Then we change gears — from diagnosing the problem to exploring the path forward. From what has gone wrong to what Colorado can do about it.

The Innovation Vision for Colorado will be one of the primary sources we draw upon. So will the coalition of 542 signatories behind the Open Letter, the voices weighing in through The Bear Roars podcast, and the many Coloradans who are increasingly engaged in what happens next.

If We Work Together, We Can Reverse This Trend

But first, we have to diagnose the source of the problem — which is why this information is being shared.

If Colorado takes the appropriate steps, Colorado can be the most attractive innovation ecosystem in the world — and every Coloradan will share in the economic and cultural prosperity that results from being the world's leading geography for innovation. This is the Innovation Vision for Colorado.

Go Deeper

— Dan Caruso, Engage Colorado

Managing Director of Caruso Ventures, Host of The Bear Roars Podcast, and Board Chair of Tulagi | Boulder Roots