Tom Steyer is a San Francisco billionaire who made his fortune as a hedge fund manager and has spent more than $200 million on political organizing for Democrats over the past decade.

Yet, despite that biography — and his plan to spend $100 million of his own money on the presidential campaign he launched Tuesday — Steyer is asking voters to consider him as something else: an outsider. It’s a word he used a half-dozen times to describe himself during our 15-minute conversation Tuesday.

Sound familiar? Steyer vaguely echoed two other wealthy men who never held elective office but stormed into power promising to change things, because they knew how politics was rigged in favor of wealthy people like them: President Trump and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Both called themselves outsiders. Not economic outsiders, political ones.

Steyer said Tuesday that his No. 1 issue is removing the corrupting influence of money in politics. “Corporations don’t have hearts. Or souls. Or futures,” he says in his campaign launch video, in which he speaks directly to the camera in the barn of a sustainable beef ranch he owns outside Pescadero on the San Mateo County coast. “They don’t have children. They have a short time frame. And they really care about just making money.

“I think people believe that the corporations have bought the democracy,” Steyer says.

He thinks he’s the man to change the system, even though he accumulated his $1.6 billion fortune mainly through the largesse of the corporate world.

Here’s what Steyer means by “outsider.” It’s someone, like him, who has not served in Washington. He compared his non-service time to the four candidates atop most polls in the Democratic presidential race — former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — who Steyer points out have served a combined 73 years in Congress.

“I’ve never been on the inside,” Steyer told The Chronicle. “I’m not an insider. I’m the exact opposite. The insiders don’t like me. And I don’t listen to them. They push back hard against me and try to give me a hard time.”

Just ask House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is Steyer’s congressional representative. While she has spent the six months warning House Democrats not to start impeachment hearings against Trump, Steyer has persuaded 8.2 million people to sign his online petition to oust the president.

Steyer contends that he is an outsider based on the decade of work he has done funding ballot measures, most notably in California. In 2016, he took on Big Tobacco and spent $14 million to pass Proposition 56, which raised taxes by $2 per pack of cigarettes, with the revenue going to health programs. In 2012 he spent nearly $30 million on Proposition 39, which closed a loophole that enabled out-of-state corporations to slip out of paying some taxes in California. In 2010 he spent $5 million to oppose the oil-company-backed Proposition 23, which would have overturned California’s landmark climate change law.

And over the past few years he has invested tens of millions in building his NextGen political group into one of the nation’s most powerful grassroots organizers of young and Latino voters. Its work helped to flip seven GOP-held House seats to Democrats in California last year.

“Who has actually been going to the people? Who has taken on the corporations and won?” Steyer asked. “The answer is power to the people. We’re not beating the corporations from the inside. The way that we’re going to beat the corporations is by inspiring, engaging the people of America.”

Here’s what another wealthy outsider candidate said about how money corrupts the system:

“I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people. Before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what? When I need something from them, two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me. And that’s a broken system.”

That was Trump during a 2015 Republican primary debate. When he accepted the GOP nomination a year later, Trump said, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

And here’s what another wealthy outsider said as he sought to rally “the people” against a system corrupted by money:

“Special interests have a stranglehold on Sacramento. Here’s how it works: Money comes in, favors go out. The people lose. We need to send a message: Game over.”

That was Schwarzenegger during the 2003 recall campaign against Gov. Gray Davis, when the actor parlayed his “outsider” status — and movie-star charm — into winning the governor’s race.

Of course, there’s one big difference between Trump and Schwarzenegger on the one hand and Steyer on the other. Trump and Schwarzenegger had 100 percent name recognition when they ran. Most people don’t know who Steyer is, save for those who have seen his pro-impeachment commercials and realized that he’s the guy onscreen.

And Steyer may have a hard time convincing Democratic primary voters, who tend to be deeply suspicious of billionaires no matter their track record, that he’s the ideal change agent.

Sanders told MSNBC on Tuesday that although he likes Steyer personally, he was “a bit tired of seeing billionaires trying to buy political power.”

I am a bit tired of seeing billionaires trying to buy political power. pic.twitter.com/NphhRorqnu — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) July 9, 2019

Similarly, Warren tweeted that “the Democratic primary should not be decided by billionaires, whether they’re funding Super PACs or funding themselves. The strongest Democratic nominee in the general will have a coalition that’s powered by a grassroots movement.”

The Democratic primary should not be decided by billionaires, whether they’re funding Super PACs or funding themselves. The strongest Democratic nominee in the general will have a coalition that’s powered by a grassroots movement. — Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 9, 2019

Then there’s Steyer’s other challenge: He’s a 62-year-old wealthy white guy running in a year when the energy of the progressive wing of the party is with younger voters, women and people of color.

“When you actually look at me, I’m not a caricature,” Steyer said. “I’m a human being who has been doing something by choice for a very long time — and winning.”

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli