High rollers: marijuana entrepreneurs harvest cash from legalised industry

When Brendan Kennedy told his family he was leaving his job at the Silicon Valley Bank to go into the marijuana industry, they thought he was crazy.

Kennedy, who has an MBA from Yale, does not fit the classic image of a marijuana operator. Sharply suited and softly spoken, he is more likely to quote Schumpeter than Bob Marley, and except for the occasional high-resolution photograph of bright green leaves, his company’s airy Seattle office feels more like the headquarters of a Silicon Valley incubator than anything to do with weed.

But as the chief executive of Privateer Holdings, a venture capital firm operating exclusively in weed businesses, Kennedy is on the cutting edge of a new breed of entrepreneurs looking to take advantage of a new gold rush – a green rush – made possible by the legalisation of cannabis.

The potential returns are huge. Estimates put the size...

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URL: 
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/20/marijuana-entrepreneurs-business-legalized-industry