In early 2014, Cary Neiman was a scrappy cannabis grower feeling ecstatic as he watched the long-standing taboo around his favorite plant easing. More and more states were enacting laws to allow medical and even recreational uses. He was determined to participate in the economic boom that would inevitably follow. So, on April 2, 2014, Neiman called up the richest person he knew.
What happened next is the subject of a lawsuit against one of the world’s largest cannabis companies. Green Thumb Industries, a vertically integrated Chicago-based firm with 1,800 employees, is now valued at about $3 billion. Even with the pandemic recession, the company is growing at a rapid pace, selling $222 million worth of product in 12 states in the first half of 2020, more than the company sold in all of 2019.
The legal dispute over Green Thumb’s founding has twists that echo the origin story of Facebook as told in the movie The Social Network, but in reverse. According to the lawsuit filed by Neiman in Illinois’ Cook County Circuit Court, Neiman’s richest acquaintance, a private equity investor named Benjamin Kovler, who knew nothing about the cannabis business at the time, promised Neiman partnership and financial support but ended up stealing the company and kicking Neiman out.
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