Chapter 1 It Starts with a Vision I''m not sure vision is something you can learn. You either have it or you don''t. I''ve certainly never taught anybody how to have a vision. The closest I ever come to explaining it, to helping someone learn how to be a visionary and to think bigger, is when I tell young entrepreneurs: See what you would like to exist in the world, imagine how you want things done or how you want things to be, and then execute it. A clear vision will serve as your finish line. How you get there, well, that''s a whole different beast. "This is the place?" I pull up to a tiny storefront set into the street level of a gray concrete apartment building in San Francisco''s Sunset District. The fog is always thick and low here, making everything seem dreamy and mysterious--just like the unmarked door I am about to enter.

It''s the summer of 2001, and I''m eighteen years old, fresh off my shift at a coffee shop called Tully''s where I''ve been working since dropping out of high school a year ago. From middle school on, I''ve been hustling. I''ve sold everything from weed to candy bars to T-shirts to my own mixtapes. I''ve been trying to make a name for myself, so I''m documenting everything on a bulky handheld camcorder I picked up from a friend''s kid brother. But I don''t know yet how I''m going to make the next leap. The streetlights start to turn on as I reach the Hemp Center, a medical cannabis dispensary where, amazingly, it''s legal to buy weed. I heard about the Hemp Center from one of my boys, a co-worker at the coffee shop. Near the end of our shifts, as we were wrapping up, he always makes these calls.

"Hey, whatup, so what you got over there today?" I''d overhear him ask. "Oh yeah? Well, I''ll take an eighth of Trainwreck, and an eighth of Romulan, and three Raspberry Bombers. Put that aside for me," he''d say. "I''ll be over there in a little bit." Then we''d pool our money together and he''d head out and return with some fire--I mean, consistently great weed. It was night and day from the bland, dusty herb I smoked as a teenager in Arizona, where my family and I spent a few years before moving back to my hometown of San Francisco. As it turned out, my hometown had the best weed in the world. I made a deep connection with weed from a relatively early age.

From my first experiences smoking with my friends in grade school, I recognized the power of the plant. Sure, I liked the feeling of being high--the calm feeling of clarity I get when I smoke, the curiosity it awakens in my mind, the way time seems to slow down. And of course I enjoy the smell, the taste, and the habitual process that goes along with smoking a joint--breaking down the weed, smelling the bud in the grinder, stuffing a rolling paper full of sticky dank, and spinning it between my fingers before twisting the top and sparking that bad boy. I liken it to the way a wine connoisseur enjoys not just drinking the wine but carefully opening the bottle and sniffing the cork, pouring it into a glass and swirling it to release the aromas, and sticking their nose into the glass before tasting. But what I really love about weed is how it brings people together. I love that people from all different walks of life connect and bond over it. That sense of community is a big part of what keeps me smoking to this day. Plus, I''ve learned to love the feeling of having good weed, of sharing it with others and seeing the reaction it gets.

There''s an energy that the weed brings out in people that I gravitate to. And I love being the person who supplies that energy. Since moving back to Cali a couple years earlier, I''d seen a few dispensaries around town. You''d see the green cross image, and I swear you could smell them from down the block. They always seemed pretty busy, but I had never been inside one. This wasn''t like buying weed on the street--you needed a medical marijuana card. When I turned sixteen years old, I didn''t get my driver''s license. I didn''t give a f*** about driving, and I still don''t--these days my boy Stinje handles the driving so I can take calls, negotiate deals, handle business on my phone, and smoke big in the back seat.

But you better believe that the day I turned eighteen I got myself a medical marijuana card and made the twenty-mile trip north to Berkeley, where there was a famously lenient doctor who would hand out marijuana permission slips like they were concert flyers. That day, I headed straight back to San Francisco and pulled up to what I can only describe as a hole in the wall. But I was too late. The blinds were all shut, and I could see a sign reading "Closed." From the outside, it was unimpressive. Little did I know that inside was a world that would change my life forever. I returned the next morning during my first break at work. Seeing a doorbell next to the unmarked door, I nervously pressed it, still wearing the black pants and white button-down shirt we had to wear at Tully''s, the black apron that completed the uniform hanging over my shoulder.

I was buzzed into the Hemp Center, and from the moment I stepped through the door I could smell all that incredible fresh weed. I showed my doctor''s note to a young man at the registration desk. I could hear laughter and music coming from the other side of the wall separating the small waiting room from the dispensary. He scanned my note, checked my I.D., and assigned me a patient number--4453. I remember it to this day; it allowed them to keep a record of my transactions. He told me I could head in, and as I stepped into the main dispensary and my eyes scanned the room, one thought ran through my mind on repeat: Holy.

Shit. I already knew the weed was great. I''d been smoking it with my homies at work for months. But to see it up close, displayed in plastic tubs like in an ice cream shop, was wild to me. The place was intimate, roughly the size of a standard hotel suite. There was a counter where the budtenders would greet the customers. Across from it was a small green couch that could hold about four people. You could smoke your bud right then and there.

I noticed that the room had a haze that lingered lazily, like the fog outside. As I entered the room, a vendor was pulling buds out of a turkey bag from his latest batch and passing them around to the staff to sample. Nervously, I approached the counter. I glanced at the shelf and quickly ordered two grams of the first thing my eyes landed on. I could tell they had put their taste test with the vendor on pause to serve me, and I felt awkward about it. As he bagged up the product, the budtender pointed to a bowl with rolling papers in it and told me I could grab a seat on the couch and smoke one there if I wanted to. The whole sequence of events was f***ing awesome. I don''t know how else to say it other than the whole scene just felt right to me.

As a kid growing up, buying, selling, holding, or smoking cannabis was always some sneaky, trappy, street, underground-type shit. The weed world I knew in my youth existed behind closed doors. But from the moment I stepped into the Hemp Center and discovered that community, that fire herb and even better vibes, I could see the future . and my place in it. I sat down on the couch and smoked a joint, observing as a steady stream of patients rolled in. I was impressed by the genuine camaraderie between them and the employees at the store. It wasn''t long before the Hemp Center became a part of my daily routine. I would head there right from work, grab a couple bags, and smoke a J on that green couch with my new friend, whether it be a cancer patient, a Vietnam vet, or whoever walked through those doors that day.

And it was an eclectic mix, all united by a love and appreciation of fine cannabis. I was obsessed with the different strains available, what people were buying, and why they were smoking a particular strain (meaning a specific variety of cannabis plant, each possessing its own unique characteristics, from taste and appearance to the type of high you can expect to get). I was also fascinated by the whole process of where and how the Hemp Center sourced its weed: They purchased from local growers and suppliers whose products always seemed to be evolving, as breeders developed new strains and cultivators grew specific buds. The more time I spent there, the more I grew to appreciate the vibe at the Hemp Center. I talked with the staff and the other customers, who were always referred to as "patients," and the more I spoke to them, the more I fell in love with the community. I talk a lot about "vibes." It''s a big word for me; I don''t care if you''re a billion-dollar investor, I just can''t rock with people who don''t have good vibes. Well, needless to say, the vibes at the Hemp Center were loving and welcoming and felt like Cheers (the OGs reading this will understand that reference, but for the young cats out there, Cheers was the most popular show on TV when I was growing up--a sitcom about the regular patrons at a bar "where everybody knows your name").

It was so genuine and unique to any experience I''d had with weed at that point. It was special.