The Wall Street Journal’s Owen Tucker-Smith reports that Colorado’s once-hot “Silicon Mountain” startup corridor, stretching from Boulder to Colorado Springs, is now catching complaints from entrepreneurs and investors who say the state’s regulatory pileup is driving companies away or causing them to skip Colorado entirely. During the 2010s, the region was reportedly minting a new startup every 72 hours. Now more than 300 business leaders are warning that red tape is making Colorado look less like a launchpad and more like California with better skiing.
The Journal points to the state’s controversial artificial intelligence law as a major flashpoint, along with labor rules, wage transparency, environmental regulations, and paid-leave policies. Gov. Jared Polis says far more companies are coming than leaving and notes Colorado has 21 unicorn startups. Fine. But when business leaders, founders, and site-selection folks are all waving flares, maybe the answer should not be, “Relax, the building is only smoking on three sides.”
The Bullet Point Brief
- Colorado’s startup scene used to be a national bragging point. Now the Wall Street Journal is writing about entrepreneurs wondering if the state has started regulating itself into mediocrity. That is what we call a brand problem with mountains.
- A state chamber report cited by the Journal estimated Colorado has lost workers from 98 firms since 2019 through relocations or missed site-selection opportunities. That is not a rounding error. That is a warning light with a siren attached.
- The AI regulation fight has become the poster child for Colorado’s bad habit of trying to be first, bold, and morally superior before anyone checks whether the engine still runs. Innovation hates uncertainty almost as much as it hates committees.
- Polis says Colorado still attracts more companies than it loses and points to its 21 unicorns. Good. But successful businesses are not houseplants. You cannot just admire them in the window while slowly starving the roots.
- Business leaders are comparing Colorado’s policy direction to California’s. That should terrify every lawmaker under the gold dome who still remembers that people moved here to escape California, not to build a tribute band.
My Bottom Line
Colorado did not become attractive because government was clever. It became attractive because people wanted to live here, build here, risk here, hire here, and dream here. The mountains helped. The lifestyle helped. The talent helped. The entrepreneurial culture helped. Then the political class looked at all that success and said, “You know what this needs? More forms.”
This is how prosperity gets strangled. Not usually with one giant law. It happens one mandate, one fee, one hearing, one compliance rule, one permitting delay, one regulatory experiment at a time. Eventually, entrepreneurs stop asking, “Can I build this in Colorado?” and start asking, “Why would I?”
And let’s be honest. Colorado’s progressive governing class loves to talk about innovation until innovation asks to be left alone long enough to actually innovate. Then suddenly everyone needs a framework, a disclosure regime, a labor mandate, an environmental review, an equity analysis, and a task force staffed by people who have never made payroll.
A healthy state wants builders. It wants founders. It wants employers. It wants risk-takers. It does not treat them like suspicious characters who wandered into a zoning meeting without permission. We can protect workers, consumers, and the environment without turning Colorado into a regulatory corn maze where every exit leads to another agency.
The great Colorado lesson here is simple: do not kill the thing that made people come here in the first place. If businesses start deciding Texas, North Carolina, or anywhere else looks easier, the problem is not that entrepreneurs lack loyalty. The problem is that Colorado forgot prosperity has to be maintained, not just taxed, regulated, and used as a backdrop for campaign photos.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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