Colorado Governor Jared Polis joins Ian Hathaway to discuss building, leading, and governing with a founder mindset and an outsider perspective.
SANTA BARBARA, CA, UNITED STATES, April 29, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Outsider Inc., the podcast hosted by Ian Hathaway, today released a new episode featuring a conversation with Colorado Governor Jared Polis, one of the most unconventional figures in American public life.
Before age 30, Polis had built and exited three companies for a combined value exceeding one billion dollars, including Blue Mountain Arts, one of the early internet’s most-trafficked sites, and ProFlowers, which reimagined the supply chain of the floral industry by working directly with growers and pioneering one of the first dynamically generated FedEx shipping labels via TCP/IP. He went on to co-found Techstars, the global startup accelerator that has since backed thousands of companies worldwide. He later served five terms in the U.S. Congress before returning to Colorado to become governor, making history as the first openly gay man elected to that office in the United States.
In the episode, Hathaway and Polis trace the arc of a career defined by operating outside conventional boundaries: from trading privatization vouchers on the Moscow Commodities Exchange at age 17, to committing $50,000 to Techstars before even knowing what it was, to managing 32,000 state employees across a government he approaches like a builder, not a bureaucrat.
Key topics covered in the episode include:
• The origin of his entrepreneurial instincts: growing up inside his parents’ Blue Mountain Arts greeting card business, working trade show floors with his grandmother, and pitching San Diego City Council at age 11
• The pattern behind his billion-dollar exits: why he believes the common thread across AIS, Blue Mountain, and ProFlowers only becomes clear in hindsight
• Co-founding Techstars: what he was actually trusting when he committed instantly to Brad Feld’s call, and what founders need that goes far beyond capital
• Coming out during his 2008 Congressional campaign: why he compares controlling your own narrative to how founders should handle material news
• Running a state like a builder: how he recruited and retained a cabinet with over 70% original tenure, and where the startup-to-government analogy breaks down
• What comes next: with his term expiring in January, Polis reflects on a career built on outcomes, not labels
“There’s no such thing as being an insider as a founder starting your journey,” Polis told Hathaway at the close of the conversation. “Just do it, jump in, the water’s fine. Keep that powerful founder’s vision, and be ready to pivot on how to implement and make it work.”
The episode is available now on all major podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
About Outsider Inc.: Outsider Inc. is dedicated to visionary leaders breaking the mold of tech entrepreneurship. Hosted by Ian Hathaway–co-author of The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem and co-founder of seed-stage venture capital firm FOVC–each episode delivers exclusive interviews and insider insights from exceptional founder building generation-defining companies. Guests have included Techstars co-founder Brad Feld, Mercado Libre and Kaszek co-founder Hernan Kazah, and other leading voices from the worlds of entrepreneurship, venture capital, and public life.
Listen now: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Substack
Andy Shore
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Jared Polis: Serial Founder to Governor | Leading Like a Builder
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