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Former Microsoft Exec Plans $100 Million Marijuana Chain

slimvictor

slimvictor

Bluelight Crew
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Dec 29, 2008
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Former Microsoft Employee Plans to Be the Bill Gates of Weed

Sometime tomorrow, former Microsoft project manager Jamen Shively will hold a press conference with former Mexico President Vicente Fox to announce plans for America's first (above-board) national marijuana company, as well as marijuana trade program with Mexico.

“We’re going to mint more millionaires than Microsoft with this business,” Shively apparently told The Seattle Times.

Reporter Bob Young has more:

[Shively]’s acquiring medical-marijuana dispensaries in Washington and Colorado, he said, and plans to become the leader in both the medical and adult-recreational pot markets. He sees the marijuana market as the only one of its size in which there does not exist a single established brand.

He and Fox plan to announce a proposal for regulating the trade of marijuana between the two countries, he said.

Some details of the trade agreement remain to be worked out, such as how to get around international rules forbidding legal pot, Shively admitted.

“I don’t know how exactly that would be done, but I know it’s been done in other industries,” he said.

This isn't the first time Shively has shared his vision, but it seems he'll be getting more attention now that he has a plan.

cont at
http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/29/former-microsoft-employee-plans-to-be-th?google_editors_picks=true
 
SEATTLE -- Washington state businessmen who say they're trying to create the first national brand of marijuana received some heartfelt support Thursday from the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox.

Fox appeared at a news conference in Seattle, where he recounted how the war on drugs has ravaged his country and praised the states of Washington and Colorado for voting to legalize the recreational use of marijuana last fall.

At the news conference, former Microsoft manager Jamen Shively discussed his plans to launch a new marijuana brand named for his great-great grandfather, Diego Pellicer. He says his company is joining forces with a Washington state chain of medical marijuana dispensaries run by John Davis, the Northwest Patient Resource Center, as well as dispensaries in Colorado and California.

Shively's planned investment will total $100 million over three years, according to the Stranger.

"This historic step today is to be observed and evaluated closely by all of us, because it is a game changer," Fox said. "I applaud this group that has the courage to move ahead. They have the vision, they are clear where they're going, and I'm sure they're going to get there."

Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive who was Mexico's president from 2000-06, specified that he's not involved in the venture. He appeared at Shively's invitation. The two first met 13 years ago, when a company Shively used to run was opening a computer center in Sinaloa and Fox appeared at the inauguration, Shively said.

Shively described grand visions for his pot brand – hundreds of millions of dollars in investments, tens of millions of customers, more than 1,000 jobs just at Diego Pellicer's Seattle headquarters.




"Yes, we are Big Marijuana," he announced.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last March, the company wrote that it had raised $125,000 of an anticipated $625,000. Shively suggested those numbers were outdated, but did not provide different figures.

Washington and Colorado expect to begin allowing marijuana sales to adults over 21 at state-licensed stores beginning next year, but marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and the Justice Department has repeatedly said it can continue to prosecute large-scale, privately owned marijuana operations even when they comply with state law.

It isn't clear how Shively's plans for a national marijuana brand might be accomplished without running afoul of federal laws regarding the distribution of an illegal substance or conspiracy to distribute an illegal substance. He and Davis said no money from their business will travel interstate, nor will the marijuana itself, but neither of those factors would necessarily shield them from arrest.

Shively insisted that his deals with the dispensaries are structured in such a way as to minimize any risk of federal prosecution, but neither he nor Davis would explain how. Shively said he had acquired certain "rights" related to the dispensaries, and made the plan sound like a marketing agreement by which the stores, beginning next month, would be re-branded as Diego Pellicer.

"Neither Diego Pellicer nor our investors are exposed to any significant risk, in terms of criminal risk," Shively said. "In terms of criminal risk, that is vastly mitigated. ... We're making strategic investments, but we're making them in such a way that they are not in violation of either federal or state law."

Asked how his plan didn't constitute a federal conspiracy to distribute marijuana, Shively described his operation as "a conspiracy to obey the law."

His securities lawyer, Mike Moyer of the prominent Seattle firm of Dorsey and Whitney LLC, declined to elaborate.

Fox urged the reporters present to maintain a focus on the important issues at hand: the failure of the drug war, the thousands of lives lost, and the better alternative offered by legalization. He noted he'd rather be sitting at a table next to Shively than the notorious cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

"This is a much better option, no doubt," he said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/marijuana-chain-brand-jamen-shively_n_3366704.html
 
I like the medical marijuana program we have in California. I don't want marijuana legalized/branded, and sold like cigarettes. I don't think that's going to do much good for the end user, it will just allow a company/corporation and the people at the top to earn a lot of money.

I like knowing the grower/dispensary owners are getting their share of the profit as a result of me buying my medical marijuana.

What I don't want to see happening is marijuana enabling an even greater distance between the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich. This is for sure going to happen if marijuana becomes legalized and is sold as cigarettes are.
 
Just sell it in the produce section of supermarkets for $2.99 a pound or whatever.

Nobody talks about the oppressiveness of Big Tomato or Big Squash.
 
23536 said:
Just sell it in the produce section of supermarkets for $2.99 a pound or whatever.

Nobody talks about the oppressiveness of Big Tomato or Big Squash.
Click to expand...

^ not a possibility

grocery stores would need to hire extra security; not for the entire store but for a portion of it.

If anything, if a grocery store was going to sell it, they would have to keep it in a locked case, much like the condoms.
 
fucking hell people, its a plant, just grow the fucking stuff yourself.
 
I don't give a shit if they are Big Marijuana or not. I just want as much weed as possible. Imagine how cheap Great Value brand weed would be at Wall Mart!
 
I don't have any room to grow it. I saw a 1000 watt light explode and start a fire once. Not a big fan of indoor residential growing, mainly because I don't feel its safe to leave my house 12 hours of the day. I suppose i could grow it in some national park, but i dont want to have to drive 2 hours to water it.
So yes i look forward to the commercialization of weed. People think is going to be like tobacco with chemical filled crap. I predict a more beer like market. Micros, small operators, mom and pops, they exist in brewing. No one forces you to drink budweiser. I am sure there will be growers and sellers who specialize in organic quality product.
 
my3rdeye said:
I don't have any room to grow it. I saw a 1000 watt light explode and start a fire once. Not a big fan of indoor residential growing, mainly because I don't feel its safe to leave my house 12 hours of the day. I suppose i could grow it in some national park, but i dont want to have to drive 2 hours to water it.
So yes i look forward to the commercialization of weed. People think is going to be like tobacco with chemical filled crap. I predict a more beer like market. Micros, small operators, mom and pops, they exist in brewing. No one forces you to drink budweiser. I am sure there will be growers and sellers who specialize in organic quality product.
Click to expand...

I agree and think it would be good if it were legalised and turned out to have a similiar market as beer brewing. Fancy having one day weed sampling different strains like we sample wines and beers!
 
MrSpeedyG said:
I agree and think it would be good if it were legalised and turned out to have a similiar market as beer brewing. Fancy having one day weed sampling different strains like we sample wines and beers!
Click to expand...

Wine or beer tasting tends to involve a swill and spit method. So, based on this if weed tasting became a thing, would they require you NOT to inhale? ;)
 
Captain.Heroin said:
^ this is already a reality for California. Except it's not legalized, it's just a medicinal program.
Click to expand...

Imagine going to Walgreens and sampling each of their different opioids, all laid out for you in booths!

I wish there was medical opium. Actually it makes sense.
 
weekend addiction said:
I don't give a shit if they are Big Marijuana or not. I just want as much weed as possible. Imagine how cheap Great Value brand weed would be at Wall Mart!
Click to expand...

imagine how shitty the quality would be though!! That's like smoking dirt.

I agree with Cpt H, I personally would like to know the local people who own the dispensaries, and know who the growers are. The growers (patients) sell to the dispensaries, and the dispensary to the customer. If marijuana starts getting sold as cigarettes, they will be made in factories with god knows what else in them... If tobacco was sold like marijuana is in California I bet there would be a lot less tobacco related illness...
 
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