Berner on Building a $1.5 Billion Business

0:00It's crunch time at work and you need to bring wings to your work day. Visit redbull.com slash getting it done and answer a couple questions about your work style to get a Spotify customized playlist tuned to your productivity. Plus, score a can of Red Bull on us while you go from to do to done. And remember, Red Bull gives you wings. Supplies are limited. Terms apply. Visit the website for more information. Spring is here and the shopping list is long. Time to make a lows run. Buy three bags, get three free. If stay green, one cubic foot garden soil. Plus, right now, members can earn four times the points on an eligible purchase. Start spring off strong with these deals and more. Our best lineup is here at Loves. Valet the 325, while supplies last. Soil offer excludes a last-gen Hawaii loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Sealows.com slash terms for details. Subject to change. Point booster subject to exclusions and more terms apply. Once I'm on the offer.

1:01All right, here we go. Today we have Bay Area hustling royalty in the building. The man behind the multi-billion dollar international cannabis brand Cookies, as well as having a successful rap career that garnered hundreds of millions of streams and collapse with some of the biggest artists in the game. Burner! Welcome back to Vlad TV. What a great intro, dude. Thank you, Vlad. Of course, man. Well, deserved. You know? My Bay Area brother. Yes, sir. You know, I love how we do our thing and made our name out there and so forth. And we're still going. We're still going. Yeah. We're still going. It's always like when someone from the hometown does it, it's just like a little more special. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, you have a new book. Yeah. Becoming legend. Get rich and leave a legacy. Why that name? First of all. You know, I feel like when I run into people, the most commonly asked thing of me or the most commonly talked about subject with me is like, I want some advice on business and keep me some game on like, you know, branding or whatnot. So I fight. It was important, especially after my cancer battle to lay out the blueprint for people,

2:04right? It's explained the way I got to where I'm at. Well, it's an interesting book. And let's talk about your childhood. Yeah. So where did you grow up? I grew up between San Francisco, California and Arizona. Right. Because your parents split up. One of them went to Arizona, other one in California, so you're hopping back and forth. Yeah. Now, Arizona was different for you. For sure. What was the biggest thing about Arizona? The biggest thing about Arizona was I grew really fast there. Like I was a very innocent kid out here in fifth grade in the Bay Area. And when I went to AZ, it was like everything was moon super fast. Right. You see, you got gamed up out there. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I don't think people really give Arizona their props as far as like a hustling city, right? Like, it's by a border town. It's like a people were really hustling out there when I got there. People were living very fast. I think that's also like what happens in the suburbs, at least for my experience. So just smoked weed at a very early age and start hustling at a very early age.

3:08And I was around a bunch of people that had big brothers as well. So I feel like it's kind of like things just start having a little faster for me out there. Sixth grade. That's where you start smoking weed and doing acid. Yeah. That's pretty young. Especially with the acid part. It's really young. Yeah. Yeah, it's really young. That's why I said I grew up too fast. I shouldn't have been done that doing that way back then, you know? Right. Now, when did it get from doing to actually selling? I mean, pretty right away, you know, my homeboy's older brother has like sell candy as almost like a joke. He's like, you know, take this candy, go flip it, you know? So we had like snicker bars and M&M's just like that, like at six grade at school. And then shortly after by the time it was like seventh eighth grade, we're selling acid, right? So it's like, that happened fast, but it's just like part of what we were doing out there is what I was around. Okay. So you're selling acid in eighth grade and you're obviously not making it. No. You're buying it from a guy's, you're buying sheets of it.

4:08Yeah. Right. 100 bucks for a sheet. Yeah. And how many hits on each sheet? So for a dollar a hit, that's how much you're paying. Yeah. One dollar per hit and you're selling it for six, seven, six, seven, that's a lot of money for a kid. Right. Especially if you go through the whole sheet, okay. But you're getting in trouble. Someone tries to do a citizen's arrest on you. Yeah. Yeah. At a parking Arizona, I'm sitting there in my boy's smoking a J and it's guy in a bike rides bike. Nice marijuana mother fucker jumps off the bike, made ride, jumps off and tackles me, tries to hold me down, told me he's going to sit as an arrest me. What the fuck does that mean? He's like, you're going to go to jail. I'm like, oh my god. So your Arizona is like a, is a blessing curse, I guess. Okay. And not only are you selling, but you're still using. Yeah. So for example, you're high on acid in high school.

5:09In class. Yeah. Teacher sees your eyeballs are huge. Yeah. So you get expelled? No. It's just kind of weird. Like, I guess that day, my teacher lent me a pencil. And at the end of the class, he was like, where's my pencil? I'm like, frying balls. I'm like, I don't know where my pencil is. Hanging was like, you lost my pencil. I'm like, having a bad trip. I'm like, yeah, I lost your pencil. And he called security on me for losing my pencil. Okay. And then the security card picks me up as like, I can't believe this guy even called me for this. He's driving like the little go car, like a golf car, he's like, I can't believe he called me for this. He's like, don't worry. Yeah. Principles right now just let you go. Whatever. Cool. It's like, what's up with your eyes, man? Like, what do you mean? What's up, man? It's like, your pupils are huge. I'm like, nah, they're not. He's like, oh, yeah, you're on something. Will you on? I'm like, nothing. So I get to the principal's office and he's tripping on me too and they think I'm on something and they call my mom, my mom came in.

6:11She told me like, you know, like, why would you guys even hate on him like this? You guys are just discriminating this time. We always look, guys, bring some bullshit on my son again, I'm going to call the school board. She brings me out of school that day, gets me in the car and she's like, what the fuck are you going on? I'm like, I'm on an acid. Oh my god. You're going to go home. You're going to sit this shit out. And so, I remember sitting there on my couch watching the water boy. She would let me get up and I had the worst trip ever to that movie because I guess Bobby Boucher's voice and the characters in that movie were fucking me up. And I just wanted to get up and walk outside, but she wouldn't let me get out. So, definitely a memory that sticks to me even to this day when I see that movie. I'm like, now, change it. I don't want to see this movie, you know? Okay, but you ended up dropping out your senior year. Yeah. How close were you to graduating? Super close. But you just decided to drop out. I just wanted to work. I wanted to get some money and I wanted to like just be out and about and just, I was up back in the bay when I dropped out and just, I had my own little program I was doing. Okay. So now you're a high school dropout living with your mom, trying to figure out what to

7:15do money wise. So you start applying it to spenceries? Yeah. So the way I worked it was, at the time I dropped out, I was working at Telly's Coffee Shop in Coal Valley, I don't know if you know, it's like a colon car on SF, and I was selling weed out at Telly's Coffee Shop, Quarter Zays and stuff like that. It was kind of just neighborhood plug. At the same time I was doing a bar back in a, in a, in a, in a waiter at a place called Jelly's Cafe by Prairie Fithy. And I soon started bartending, so I started bartending at 19 years old, making a good amount of money. I was working at Telly's and selling weed, making cool money and then I ended up stumbling into a dispensary to do a documentary. I wanted to make a documentary on the place and ended up getting hired there. So that's all I got into the dispensary game. Okay. And what happened next? What happened next was I started working at the Hemp Center on 12th and Geary, and I ended up quitting the coffee shop. I was doing a bartending and bartending, Monday through Monday. So Monday through Friday, I'd be working at the dispensary and then Friday, Saturday and Sunday

8:18I get off work, go bartending at night. So just enjoying the hell out of life of day. It's probably the best time I ever had. Right. But at the same time, you're hustling. Yeah. For sure. So about this in the book, you do things like sneak a half a sip of coke through airlines. Yeah. It was more for like personal use. So it wasn't like, it wasn't like I was selling coke like that. I was never like, at least selling coke like that. Okay. But you talked about how this was right when body scans came around. Yeah. So you had to stick the coke basically, yeah, you got to get away with it, dog. You know what I'm saying? How to catch a smuggler. To the other one. To the other one. Man. When you stick it up your ass. It didn't go up. I just in between in between the cheeks in between the cheeks. I never put anything up a little better sort of man. Listen, when you walked up and saw that, when you saw that, right? You saw the X-ray. You know you had a fat rock in your pocket. Oh my God. I'm going to go jail. It's insane. It was so.

9:18Yeah. But up like boofing. No. I probably would have died or something like that. Right. Because if the the bag breaks, you're done for. Yeah. I'd be on the episode. So it's just you and I'm the discovery sound or something like that. Now, did you start pimping right around this time? No. You know, my whole thing is like, you're from the barrier, right? And our barrier, our forefathers kind of preach that like that lifestyle, right? Right. And so for me, it was more like girls like who I was and like through the head going on. I want to kind of impress me and buy me things and give me things like that. But I was never a full-fledged pit like that. Fuck no. Okay. But you did have girls that are bringing back money for you? Not necessarily. I was dating girls at dance that just broke a little bit. Yeah. It was never like a, I was never on something like real piece shit per se. But our culture, the influence we grew up on, the Madras, the world, etc., kind of push that agenda. And naturally, just as being a rap cat that was kind of a lifestyle, I was attracting women that that kind of just had money and wanted to spend money type shit. Okay.

10:19So you're working at legal weed shops and you're hustling on the side. Yeah. So my mom unfortunately passes away and she leaves like $19,000 for you. Yeah. So by the time my mom passed away, it was kind of playing with the hustling shit a lot more. It was a little more elevated than when I was a kid. The stuff we were just talking about. And around that time, I was getting fucked with that airport time by the feds, etc., they pulled me out the plane, go through my bags, show me pictures of bank deposits, weird shit. And I thought things that the thought I was doing, they said their own perception of what I was doing. They were wrong. And when my mom passed away from cancer, I really took a step back from everything. I was like, look, I got a baby girl, I can't really put myself in jeopardy for going to jail. So I just had to focus on what I was doing with the music space, which was perfect because music started paying me right around that time. It was like perfect timing. That's the universe, show me love. And then I was just trying to build my shit up and I got a call from my brother saying,

11:23you know, we have some money left for us in the IRA account. And it was like $30,000, but if I cash prematurely, it would only turn out to be $19,000. So I took the $19,000 and I started what you see today, which is cookies, SF. Okay. But didn't you also have some money buried in the backyard? I used that for something else, yeah. 20 grand. How much? 20 grand. 20 grand. Yeah. Yeah. Buried literally buried in the backyard. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now you got what, $40,000? Well, I already spent the 20. Okay. I spent that before using the 19 to invest some cookies here. All right. So now you have $19,000. Mm-hmm. Clean money. Yeah. Why did I name cookies? So around the time there was a strain that came out, as you know, cookies, and it was buzzing hard. And I was trying to think of a brand name for clothing. I thought about using a name present, so I thought about using different names that could be cool. And I was like, you know what, cookies have such a familiar name to it and ring to it and feel to it. We go ahead and try and pop this off. And so it just made sense. It was something I played with and shot some of my boy, Shamp, a photo doctor.

12:26I'm sure you know where that is. Barry, a legend. He did all the covers. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. He designed the first cookies logo. When I seen it, I was like, holy shit. This is going to stick. So it just felt right. I just kind of tried to pop that off. Okay. So originally, it was just a strain. Yeah. It was Girl Scout cookies' strain. Okay. How did that lead into an actual store? Well, that would come much later. So you have the strain out popping, right? And I'm doing music. And so the music is starting to spread the knowledge of the strain and who is behind the strain. So that starts popping. Then you kind of pop off a brand with an identity and looking to feel that starts popping. And then just there's motion behind the word cookies and name cookies, the brand cookies behind myself. And the way it turned into a store is my boy in San Jose hit me up one day. I said, listen, I'm growing all your stuff anyways. I have this sunset shirt, but I have the cookies growing in rotation. I'm doing a great job at it. I have a store front of San Jose. How much would you charge me and paint the logo on the build? I'm like, look, I never think I'm starting to that.

13:27So that's how we popped it off. Okay. So are you a partner in that store at that point? No, I wasn't a partner at all. I was just getting paid for him to use my logo. That was the first iteration of that. Aha. So now you have a cookie store without putting any money up. Exactly. I was like, it was to the point where there's lines down the block and the city was complaining about how busy that store was. Oh, he had the right weed. He was inviting people that I was fucking with on the music, like Snoop and Ways By There, the store was starting to pop. Then the next group, which we'll just call the group, approached me and said, okay, we like what you're doing over there, but how will we give you this amount of money to change a whole store to a cookie store and pay your own fees on this? And if it works, we'll keep going, right? So the first version of it was like, let's just see if it works, I'll get a little brown bag from it. Cool. That was cute. Now it was super pop in. Now we have a bigger group that has vertical integration in the whole medical marijuana space. They have a couple storefronts and they want to get it pop. Okay.

14:28So now you have investors. No. It wasn't investors. No group. It was a group that already has storefronts and cold deviation. Huh. And it was like, it was a licensing deal. It was like a real licensing deal. Okay. And then like this, licensing the brand as well. And they did a separate licensing deal for genetics as well. So what point does the real money start coming? Well, that was great for me because in that deal, I ended up making like around 90 grand a month. Wow. And that was about like three years. Did it make a million dollars a year that way? Yeah. Yeah. And that was like just from that. And they were supposed to be rotis on the cannabis diet of things as well, which kind of fell apart. They got away with the fact that, you know, you can't really trademark genetics and it's still federally illegal as well. So we couldn't really enforce that as much as we want to. But you got millions of dollars a year coming in, right? The concept has now been proven that like, hey, a cookie store really works, right? These guys are making 30 plus million a year, right?

15:29And cookies weed when done, right, really works. And so from there, when they get around 2017, we actually brought in partners and investors. And by 2019, we're really rolling, right? Like we started actually building the business, which you see today at Cookies Enterprise. Right. So now you actually co-owned some of the stores with this next iteration? Yeah. So that's the next iteration the way we did it was on one store, I believe in Melrose and Maywood, we had like a show piece of it. But what we figured was it'd be more like a license and deal again. We own all the IP now, right? We owned all the IP in the first place. But there was like confusion around who the brand was, because there's multiple different groups. Now we have the IP in one building and we're licensing the logo out, licensing the genetics out and finding partners actually operate. So we didn't own the stores. We just had a right to roll the stores up in an event of IPO for Stalker Cash. And we had royalties coming in from the stores.

16:31So you don't really own it, but you have the right to purchase it at some point in time, which is kind of like owning it. Okay. Now, things are changing 2016 Prop 64 passes, which is a big deal and what exactly is that? Legal marijuana in California. So this one California passed REC. Right. And then that followed by state, state, state, state, state, state. Yeah. You started doing collabs. Gary Payton was an interesting one. Epic. He doesn't want to sell our cannabis in North America too. That's strange. And same. I interviewed Gary. We talked about this. He doesn't even smoke weed. Doesn't he? No. I just got blessed with somebody who want to name a strand of weed after me. It's crazy. Yeah. Well, in my picture on the bag of weed and I don't even smoke weed. So, you know, it's crazy and it becomes the top seller. You know what I'm saying? So I'm, you know, I'm just grateful.

17:31How do you take a non weed smoker? I mean, granted it's a, a no name, but he's not Michael Jordan in terms of like total global. No. But in the Bay Area, especially, he's a big name because he's from there and I'm a huge fan. I interviewed him. But I'm saying, it's not exactly a household name. And that is, was it just the right strain? So it was three things. One, it was a real and organic, right? Two is a great strain and three, like the marketing was super, super right on it. So a quick story of it was my partner Kenny Powers is a big basketball fan. We're going through Finos, you know, number 18, number 19, number 20, number 24, whatever it may be. Number 20 popped and he's like, oh, that's that Gary paid and just in the background. And from that, on the story, people thought that that was going to be our next training. People started bootlegging it right away before we even had it and get, end up getting in Gary's hands and Gary thought we were bootlegging some shit with his name. What's this? Sit down in Oakland, California and I go sit down and Gary and he shows me this bullshit

18:31in the bag with some crazy logo like, this is y'all, I'm like, no, that's not us. I didn't really understand what's happening until it kind of clicked in my head that we said it one time on Instagram story and I even like a post like it was a fucking story that kind of came and went and I told him like, look, man, like we ended up naming that snow Montana and it's a great and I can get you a sample of it. But like, bro, like that wouldn't be us because our packaging will look right and it wouldn't be this lemon cherry renamed in a bag like it'd be something totally unique. So it kind of like was interested, I've shown what our packaging will look like is like, look, why don't you give me a sample, I'll see if Lil Gary enjoys it. If he does, we could talk about some so I got him a sample. He enjoyed it. We ended up coming together to do that and we called it Gary Payton and it just blew up because it was real or is organic, it wasn't forced, it wasn't like a, it just kind of happened naturally, right? And I think people just dug it. I don't know why it popped so hard. I think it was a combination that we'd need a packaging and we'd be in the first people to ever put a sports player on a bag like a Weedies box. Hmm. Yeah. Well, by 2022, you guys had 58 stores and 300 million in sales.

19:36Mm-hmm. Now, at that point, that was just US stores, right? I believe there was some global, but mostly, mostly USM. Right. Because you ended up expanding into Thailand, Canada, Israel, Germany, Portugal, England, Spain, the Netherlands, of course, Amsterdam. Explain this expansion from having a couple of stores and a group that's licensing your stuff to now having a global brand in so many different countries. I think that like we wanted to go anywhere that we was kind of opening up. We wanted to put in a flag, flag their first flag to go to places like the Netherlands and Spain and Thailand, which I don't know if you've ever saw that video. You should check it out if you have time, but the Thailand opening was insane. To see the culture embrace cookies like that, to have the cultural moments that we had there, to have the monks there to bless the store, to have lines on the block from people from Ireland and Sweden and Japan and China, China, they pulled up. So it's really cool for us to do our thing in other countries.

20:38And I think that, you know, I think everyone knows the whole world wants to eat us not just here, right? The whole world wants to eat and they know cookies as a brand that could be trusted and they know cookies as a brand that was one of the first. So as markets open up, people reach out, as markets open up, opportunities come to us. And I think we haven't, we even have a store in the UK open up soon. So it's like, it's next level. Well, you went from 300 million sales in 2022 to 1.5 billion in sales in 2025. Yeah, it's like, that's like total combined sales, right? So that's, that's, that's not net. That's gross. It's like, if you take all the revenue we made from, you know, the time we started the company until now, it would be a total of 1.5 billion dollars earned under their brand name. That's a big deal. It's a big deal. 0.5 billion, no matter how you count it as 1.5 billion. It's 1.5 billion dollars off of a brand I created from the Bay Area, which is insane if you really think about it. Well, things are going well for you, but then you end up with cancer.

21:40Yeah. What kind of cancer? Colin. That's one of the scary ones. Well, it's the one that's killing, it's the number one killer of cancer for people under 50. Right. And your own mom died of cancer at one age. She died at 54. 54. Yeah, that's 38. Yeah, exactly. So you're 38 with the same similar disease that your mom had. Yeah. What did you go through in that whole situation? You could ever imagine because you have to think about it. The brand is jumping through the roof where I'm at my peak as an entrepreneur as a CEO. I'm like, fuck, I built this thing from nothing, right? I learned the horror way of licensing deals and this and that to get to where I'm at. Now that she's jumping and I was sitting there one day and I was like, man, everything's working great for me. What am I missing here? Like, what's, what am I doing wrong? For some reason, I'm like, I think I should get a private doctor. I don't fucking know what it was that made me think that I'm like, I should get a private doctor.

22:40She spent some money on that. Got a private doctor and asked them to, you know, just to check up on me, a series of blood tests that was brand new, brand fucking new, called Signotera and Grail. And you run the blood tests on me. I'm the first person at fan cancer cancer through his blood test and fixed it. Hmm. First person. I actually did a bunch of commercials for gallery and Grail. They don't want to use it because I'm not the face they want to use, right? But bro, like, to find it through a random blood test and like, to find out how blessed I was, they said in other six months or eight months, if not finally, I could have died within a year and met a bunch of people on my journey that are not here anymore. And it's really weird because like, that shit, I had zero symptoms dog. Like I had zero symptoms and that shit was very, very far along and they removed a foot and a half of my colon. Yeah. And it was a big eight and a half hour surgery and it was supposed to remove everything but it didn't had to do six months of chemo and anyone that knows chemo is like, forget about it, bro. Chemo was like, you die.

23:40You die and you die and have to come back because it kills all your cells. Good and bad. So I did chemo for six months and went through some crazy shit while I was on chemo besides just being on the health area and having to fight for my business. And so it was very dark, it reminded me what my mom went through and I was very afraid that I wouldn't make it through the other side. But you made it through. I'm here. And during that time, you made your album, Gotti, which was your best selling album essentially? Yeah. Yeah. So those times, that's some of the best artists. Back against the wall. Honestly, I just, I don't even know how I was doing Gotti at that time because it just was like, in my opinion, I was like, this is my last album, so I want to go big with the name, the rollout, the branding, like features. There were some big records on the album and I'm like, I'm just go big, dude, let me leave a mark real quick and try to do the best I can. The position I'm in. You know, so... Well, why are you going through cancer? There's a problem with your company, in terms of legally.

24:42What exactly happened? The best way I could describe it without getting myself in any kind of more mess I'm writing in is a attempted hustle takeover. I think when you build something powerful, people will come to take it. Okay. And so you attempted a hustle takeover? No, no, no. You attempted a hustle takeover of you. Yeah. And is it still going? Oh, yeah. So it's not done yet. No. Okay. How much have you spent in lawyer fees? About 20 million dollars. 20 million dollars. I probably spent a million throughout my life. Well, this is in a three year period and it's not stopping anytime soon and the thing is like, I've got comfortable recently with saying, look, I'll probably end up going broke fighting this shit. Right? I'm a fighter until I can't fight for it anymore because basic principles and morals is like, this is something I built, some I start from the ground up and some that not just I built, but everyone that is a fan and supportive cookies build as well. So it's a very powerful brand, it's such a whole world, I'm not going to give up on

25:46it easy at all. Okay. Because I remember the beginning, everyone was excited about weed legalization, especially in Canada, where it was national. Yeah. For all types of people who had absolutely no stock experience were calling me up, so what do you think about these weed stocks? And I told them the same thing, I said, I have no idea, I'm not in the weed industry. So I'm not going to invest in it. So you're welcome to it, but I have no idea, plus the differentiation in weed is sometimes a little funny. Yeah. You know, I mean, people have their favorite liquor, but with weed, a lot of times here's go with high quality weed, right? So you saw this big bubble that happened, then there was a pop, were you caught in the middle of this? Yeah. I feel like at the same time, weed industry is starting to get over-cannibalized, over-saturized, it's just like everyone's trying to be that next thing, if people are fighting to be the one brand, there's a big thought in the weed space that the one brand, there's a few brands that are going to get acquired one day for a lot of money, right?

26:48Like everyone wants to be that one brand, that one brand that actually sees it through to the end. And I think that a lot of people started getting caught there as soon as 64 passed. Okay. Because that happened, but you really saw a lot of changes. So for example, Gilbert Adredis, right? A friend of mine, regular on the show, he owned a whole bunch of weed growing facilities, land, whatever else. And I remember asking one day, I said, oh, how's the business? He goes, it's messed up. He said their meetings came in and started basically selling cheap weed and flooding the market. Because now it's like $1,000 a pound? Less. Less. Yeah. I see people who sound pounds like 700 bucks, 600 bucks, 500 bucks. 500 bucks for a pound of decent weed? Look as unlikely. Good enough. That's good enough. Yeah. But I think that's also a species of like, you don't have to follow that trend. I've been very, very, very, like, I've taken a big stance on like, we don't have to follow

27:49that trend. Just because people have an abundance of it, they want to sell for this cheap doesn't mean you should as well. If you have a good brand, if you have a good quality, if you have something that no one else has, you just stick to your price. Well, as you're growing, a lot of celebrities reshot to you. So Jay-Z, he had his own brand. It was like a really expensive pre-regret, yeah, which ultimately didn't do well. What was the conversation with Jay-Z like? It was great. I mean, like, shot to Jay-Z, he was, he was in a position trying to build this company up. He wanted to build it kind of fast in a sense that he's like, he reached out in a sense that he wanted to either do a merger or acquire cookies. And I was like, oh, you wanted to buy your brand. Yeah, he wanted to either merge like, we could we come together like this or he wanted to acquire it all out. I just told him, like, look, dude, like I would love to work with you in any way, shape of form. You're a legend. And you do big in business. I don't always see you missing at all. But this is something I built from, you know, from the ground all the way up.

28:50And I'd like to leave it from my kids. One day or have my kids run it. You know, I've always pictured my daughter, Janelle, who's 18 now, kind of stepping in a CEO. She has a very powerful light and or around her. She has a good, strong personality. She has a people's personality. I always want her to be in position for cookies. She knows me the best. And he was like, look, there's ways to leave your kids involved and, you know, give you some game on how I did my thing with Ace and whatnot. So it was super cool. Very pleasant conversation. I just wasn't ready at the time. I didn't make sense for me. And also I kind of saw the people that he was working with and their lack of experience and knowledge in the space. And I just knew if I gave my situation over them, it probably wouldn't end well. America leads the world in medicine development. It matters. We get new medicines first, nearly three years faster. Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home. Not relying on other countries keeps us safe. But China is racing to overtake us. Will we let them or will we choose to stay ahead? When America leads, America cures.

29:50Let's tell Washington to keep us in the lead. Learn how at AmericaCures.com. Pay for it by pharma. Right now, new fan dual customers can get up to $300 back in bonus bets every day for 10 days. Place a tournament bet using the token. And if it doesn't win, you'll get up to $300 back in bonus bets every single day for 10 days straight. You can even mix things up with same game parles for a shot at a bigger payout. Fandual. It's time to dance. 21 plus in president's lexate. Bonus bets are nonwithdrawable and expire seven days after receipt. Tokens are received an increments of one per day, restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandal.com. Gamlin problem called 1-800-Gamler. I mean, there are multiple times that people wanted to invest and so forth. One of which was Ditty. Now, did he want to meet with you multiple times and you were essentially ignoring you? I was scared of Ditty. You were scared of Ditty? Yeah. Back then, what year was this? It was before all this. But I guess I was scared of him because he's a very powerful energy. He's like, what up? Let's do it. He's like, oh, shit.

30:51Hold on. You can't sit. I'm afraid I'm going to be like, I'm a very shy timid guy. You know what I'm saying? So I'm like, oh, fuck. So I ducked him for about a year or so. When do you leave angry voicemails? No, not angry. He's just like, what's up, man? I know you out there in Montana, King, but you ain't as busy as me. Like, what's going on? I'm like, I enjoy my lengthhouse to show you. I'm saying it's got a devil cancer. And she's like, that was like chilling, bro. Like, man, I'm just chilling right now, man. But if it's your thought, you know, the key is a powerhouse in the space where they'd be fashion, alcohol, whatever it is he does. He touches things. He makes them go big. So I'm like, I should at least take the meeting out of respect, but I didn't want to do the deal. Okay. Because you guys did meet up at Diddy's house. Yeah. And I guess you refused to drink anything that you didn't want to drink anything. I didn't want to drink anything. He wanted to do it. I said, man, I don't think Diddy was going to poison me or drug me. I just, I just heard, I've heard stories about Diddy in the past. He's, you know, he turns up. So I'm like, look, we're going to go there. We're show love. We're going to show respect to Dogey. We're like a drink now then.

31:52Wait a minute, if I could chill or we're in a lead before it's dark. So that's what we did, you know? Well, you said that he acted like a used car sales. He just was like very, he's very salesman. You know, like we're from the Bay of Ladd. You know, we know people that know that, uh, that shit, you know, he was trying to pop that shit on me. I'm like, I hear you brother, but like, you know, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. So he was overly compensating and you just was trying to like, you know, he was passionate about it. At least, you know, he's passionate about it, but, you know, I just, it didn't make sense either. Well, at the end of the meeting, he asked for 10% of the company. Yeah. So it was kind of a strange process. You know, he, uh, he showed interest in the cookies. We told him that different ways. They, he had potentially invested through an investment fund. Um, it was like an investment fund that was kind of leading the investments on cookies at the time. And his actual partner was very, very smart. He did a bunch of due diligence, call our numbers and start looking through the business, financial reports, all this stuff. It was a long process. And at the end, he's like, just give me 10% as like an influence.

32:52I'm like, what the fuck? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So after all that, he wanted you to just give him 10% of everything you built just to do it. Just to be a face of it. I thought that was going to be different than that because his boy was like really going to financials. He was like a real, he's a real guy. Wow. Yeah. Well, I guess in his defense, he did very well with that type of deal with Sarak. For sure. And like, there's no questioning, like, look, take a side, all the shit he's doing with now, right? Because that wasn't public at that time. Right. He's a boy. He knows how to blow things up, right? Which is why I even sat down with him, but we didn't want to do the deal, so it kind of worked out perfectly. But in his mind, he's like, look, cookies is big. I can probably make it bigger, but we didn't really need that. I don't think we really need the energy either, like where to have our thing going also. Well, there's a story that you told where you and Wiz Khalifa were hanging out with Diddy in the club.

33:54Tell that story. Yeah. So, we were with him in Miami at some point in time. And this is way back in the day before I was even like popping like that is before cookies was really what cookies was. And our heart remember is that we were leaving a place in Star Island to go to a club and Wiz had rolled his perfectly big joint. He passed it to me. He was like, and just threw it over the fucking water. He's like, whoa, what the fuck is that? He's like, I don't want fucking this shit. I don't want to get pulled out really well. I'm like, what the fuck? We get to the club and they start searching everyone. And he's like, you guys are searching people, it's 2000, whatever it is, we got kill you guys. When you know God damn guns, like what the fuck is kind of burst to the club? He was in there. He was in there for a little bit of time. He looked at us like, I got to get the fuck out. He just did. I'm like, it's definitely a trippy guy. He was definitely like turned up and like, he was out there. So, I definitely remember that moment briefly, but yeah, he threw Wiz Khalifa's joint over the water. Well, wasn't there a situation around that where the bouncers were going to search you guys,

34:57but there was something to do with gas or... No, that's what I say. He said, he said, why are you searching me? We don't need no guns. We got kill you guys. It was a joke. It was a joke. It was a joke. It's kind of like, he was just being sarcastic and like, yeah, it's just, it's just a joke. I felt like he was just being sarcastic with him. Well, you said something interesting once. You said that the CIA is behind sexy red. Who was the tweet that was out? Okay. You didn't see that? I don't know. You see that? No. He didn't see that. I didn't see it tweet now. Yeah. She even addressed it. So, there was a big thing on Twitter is pretty much saying that CIA had her as a plant. Okay. I don't know why or how that would make sense, but she addressed it recently and said, why the fuck? What the fuck is CIA and what does that have to do with me? So, it was definitely out there like that. Well, but you sort of push certain theories that are kind of fringe for some people. We've said the ancient civilizations were in tune with the stars. For sure. And these days, we're listening to negative music and eating unprocessed foods, which is affecting how we operate.

35:58100%. Explain. I feel like back in the days when we look at our ancient, you know, our ancient ancestors back in the days, they were very in tune with the astrology. They were very in tune with the world as a whole, very in tune with everything about the world, right? They knew more than we know now. Like, you look at a kid now. He knows what's popping online, he knows what music is trending, he knows what kind of food is hype, beasts, and whatever they're not really in tune with what the universe is to us. And so I just feel like there was a lot more knowledge back in the days than there is now. I think that we, as people have been dumbed down on purpose. Well, the business side was phenomenal and still is. I remember going to the cookie store in New York and I was like, oh, shit, this is my man's store in New York, where he used to be illegal, but I used to get in trouble. I'll cross you from Macy's. Yeah. Down the street from my studio, actually. Yeah. You want to, on the cover of Forbes, how did that feel? I'm fucking insane.

37:00Well, right after you cancer, too. Okay. Great way to come back. What was your net worth at that point? Because to get on Forbes, they almost published your net worth to their ability. They said $150,000 is what they thought it was at that time. Okay. Is that true? I think it was a little more than that at that time. Okay. Now, when you say $150,000, that usually doesn't mean liquid. No. Doesn't mean you have $150,000,000 in your bank account. Not just sitting in the bank. Yeah. You're getting five percent interest. It means the value of the entire business. Well, not just the business, but the assets you have, like property and stuff like that. Right. And most of that money is because of the business. Yeah. Now, for example, me personally, what I started doing early on is when Vlad TV started to pop and money started coming in, I took that money and I put it into stocks that I was really familiar with, like Google, Amazon, Tesla, Facebook at a certain time, and

38:04so forth. Were you investing your profits or was everything just going back into the company? Back into the company, back into things that I actually touched myself. I don't really believe in putting money into other things because I don't want to fuck up and lose it and be sick about it. So whether it be like other projects, whether it be back into music, whether it be into new companies, whether it be into a property, that's why I was kind of things like I actually really control. Okay. I mean, you technically don't control the company when you buy a stock, but Amazon's not going anywhere. Yeah. I just, I'm not, I have to get you to get in and up from me on that because I'm just scared to pull triggers like that rather say, I'm going to buy a house in Montana. I got about a house in Montana. I bought a fight 27 and it turned into like six million dollars over after the whole cat COVID thing. That was a great flip. Right? Like own it outright. It was also, let's be fair though, it was also a little bit lucky because no one's out COVID coming and no one knew what the property prices were going to happen. 100% COVID. 100%. Well, I also bought property at, there never be any more properties like that on that kind of kind of situation. So it was like, it's a small one for me because it's not going to make more of the world,

39:05right? I need to get gained up on better investments. That's all two chains investing to space extra. That would even fucking sick, right? So I need to learn more about plays like that. I just, I don't really have people like that in my circle. I just really focus on things like actually tangible. Yeah. We got some conversations. I put a lot of people to learn. I love to learn. Yeah. Yeah. I want a little baby as Boosey. A baby's made millions off of just conversations. Yeah. I want, we should go get lunch because I definitely want to learn a little more about that. Yeah. Of course. I mean, so outside of cookies, what was your greatest investment? Outside of cookies, my biggest investment would probably be, I mean, I probably saved my music, my music in general. Right. Because didn't you have an offer for $10 million? Did you get a look? Yeah. Was that recent or a while back? No. It was like a few months ago. A few months ago. Yeah. Okay. So why not do it? Because as much as I want the bread, you have to look at like this, a $10 million check turns into what? 5 mil after taxes, right? In my tax bracket. Well, depending on how you do it. Well, I live in California. Yeah. That's a salary. Yeah.

40:05It's 5 million. I live in California. There is long-term capital gains on it. Maybe it'd be like less than half, but let's just call it $7 million. You get $7 million, right? That's fair. And then can I do more $7 million now than I can if I let the, and that's based on a 10 year evaluation. Right? I think the 10 mil was based on like a 10 year, 10 to 15 year evaluation, I believe. And so my whole thing is like, in 10 year, my son's only going to be 10, or he's only going to be 12. That's a whole life he has to live. Now there's a good point that maybe my catalog goes like this, there's a good point. I'm not like a big regional artist. I'm not like a whiz or a snoop, right? I have a very cult fan base. So maybe there's a big world where like, there's a big scenario where my sheet just drops. But I felt like I'm actually doing things that touch the whole world still. And I feel like I haven't even reached my peak as I can. So I feel like I could take this 10 mil now or I can just leave it in my kids' names. I feel like leaving it with my kids is a little more powerful. I think the biggest desire for me was also like, if you look at my content, right?

41:06If I do like a recap from the day I met with you, right? And I use my beats in the background. That wasn't going to be possible where they're saying, anytime I want to use my music, I have to ask permission. I'm like, 46 albums, I have a lot of music and I love my records. I love my records. I love my beat. My beat selections insane. And when I do recaps like store openings or like flaws or whatever it may be, to have to ask someone to use my music again. That was the biggest desire for me. I said, if we can get past that, we're good. If I use my music for stuff I'm producing myself, I'd be good with that. If it was going to be something for bigger, I'd get it. And they're like, nah, if we're going to buy a shit, we own a shit, you have to ask us every time. Like, that fucking amount. I think the problem with you is that $10 million doesn't actually move the needle. Nah, I want to be like, and my calories shouldn't be more than that. It's probably worth 10. That's part of it. Yeah, I think it's a fair offer. Right. I mean, it's like, you're not Taylor Swift. Like, you know, the other day, it's cool. They didn't make me want to move like that. I'm like, bro, I got to rather just keep building, you know. So, hopefully I made the right decision.

42:06Hopefully my shit doesn't go down. I feel like, you know, the cool thing is I still constantly reinvent myself with the music stuff. I just dropped a record of baby face raise to like 100,000 plus streams a day. That's out of nowhere. You know, I have one with my guy Chris as well, doing 100,000 streams a day. So it's like, every now and then, you hit a little bit. Well, you talked about your work addiction in the book, and you actually applied for a job recently, with what? I want to work at a restaurant. Okay. My girl's always true. Yeah. One of the way tables. I used to love the way tables. Honestly. I used to weigh tables back in high school. But that's not what I applied for. I applied for, I applied a big, a big lighter for, for a head of marketing, head of marketing and big lighter. Yeah. Okay. That's got a left field. I mean, I guess smoking lighters. Well, I already worked with them on the rolling paper stuff, and, and I built a really good rapport with them, and I just know we have one of the best content teams in the game. I have a 20,000 square foot facility in Marin. You should come check it out. I host designers, video editors, and just like, is it, is it very big creative compound?

43:10I'm going to try to think about how to monetize them, like, look, I, like, keep doing things for myself, or I can start reaching out to other companies to help other companies build. I feel like if I can get in with BIC, I could take their shit and go like this, kind of take a whole different approach. They have Martha, they have TJ Caled, they have Snoop. I'm shot to Snoop, but I feel like there's a different way to kind of get more, a little more edgy with their marketing. So I just, I was kind of just curious to see what I could do with them. It was kind of like a, it was just like a, a little reach there, like, burn, you don't want to do that, dude, and you fucking, you got your own shit going, like, I kind of want to, you know, so. Well, yeah, you didn't get off of the job. No, no, you're like, man, like, you don't want to do that. They thought I was joking. They thought I was trolling, you know, so I'm like, no, I'm not trolling, I just, I like to see what I could do outside of Canvas is what I'm trying to say. Like I'm really good at marketing and branding, and I feel like if I applied to other things, it could be really big. What is it about your work ethic, do you think is different than everyone else? Because ultimately, when you look at all the successful people out there, they have this type of work ethic that doesn't make sense to other people. Well, I should appear at 10.30 a.m., aren't of you as a 12.

44:13To this interview at 10.30? Yeah, I was out here outside of 10.30. Really? Yeah. Okay, I had no idea. Yeah, so I'm always early. Okay. I'm never going to have early. I'm never late. I take my shit very serious. I can't deal with that one myself. There's no manager. You know, like, there's no manager for me, right? Like, if you're going to do a business of me, you're going to be doing business of me personally. So I feel like the personal touch makes a big difference. And I think just being attentive to business, like I'm addicted to business. I like business. And, you know, some people have it. I think some people don't. Jay-Z got it. If you say I got it, you know, there's people that actually have that addition to business and that kind of like move the needle themselves, I feel like. What do you think? Was the biggest mistake you made, business-wise. Taking money from other people. Really? Yeah. That's why I'm always lawsuits. Yeah. That's actually something I've always avoided. Yeah. I've always avoided investors. I have no investors. You're lucky, man. I have no partners. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you know Zach Katz. Yeah.

45:14You know, you used to be the head of Columbia Publishing and, you know, so forth, big music career. He won an investment via TV at the very beginning, but he only won it off from you $10,000. And I just said, even though I was broke back then, $10,000 would not have been- I have some great investors, you know, shout out to them. I have some great partners, but there's always going to be that chance that there's going to be a bad seed, and they can cause a lot of problems for you. That's what happened with you. Yeah. So, all the businesses you start from now on, no investors. No. I always think that's the best way to do it. Yeah. Just look, it's like maybe cookies wouldn't be right right now if I didn't take investors. Like I actually proved a point. Besides the money, besides whatever it is, like to go to bed and I end to be on your deathbed whenever the time comes and be able to say, I touched the whole world through my work. It's a fucking amazing accomplishment, right? Whether it's a Paz on, we end up exiting for billions of dollars one day or whether it's shit falls apart because I've been fighting for three years and I have to fight another three years. Like what I've accomplished is really, really good for my soul, especially everything

46:15I've been through with cancer. How many people would say that they had a dream, that a vision they saw through and they touched the whole world through it? That's a big statement, you know, so maybe that wouldn't be possible without the investors including the bad ones, but now if I'm going to start, if I'm going to start a juice company, if I'm going to start like a watch company, if I'm going to do something myself, I'm not going to take no money for no one. Score more with the college branded Venmo debit card and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo stash. Got paid back? With the Venmo debit card, you can instantly access your balance and spend on what you want. Game day snacks, gear, tickets, and more. The more you do, the more cash back you can earn, plus there's no monthly fear minimum balance. Sign up now at Venmo.com slash college card. The Venmo master card is issued by the bank court bank NA, select schools available, Venmo stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo.me slash stash terms, max $100 cash back per month. Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now, and they're up to 60% off. Stock up and save on Ragnbonne made well, Vince, All Saints, and more of your favorites.

47:17Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more, plus buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices, that's why you rack. As someone that's been in the cannabis business at the highest levels, where do you see it going in the next couple of years? I think that once some of these grays are out of office, it's going to be legalized federally and then it's going to be big. I think they're like, right now survival of the fittest, and people may say what they say about our brand and our business, cookies, but like, bro, we're still popping, and we're popping all over the world, not just here, so it's like, right now, my biggest thing right now is like, okay, I had this wave, I blew it up, I got to hear, motherfuckers attacked, we got down here, now I'm right here rebuilding it again. I really want to make a good, like, full feature documentary about where we're at right now, now I'm out of the rebuild it, and get it back to where it was. I think that's where I'm at with it. I think that in three years, this, three to five years should be legally, it should be

48:20legalized federally, and whoever's in position still will probably see a good exit, although it'll be in position. Yeah, because I've always been worried about bringing weed with me on planes, even if I'm going to one legal state, to another legal state, because technically it's illegal federally. So, going through the airport in TSA, you're on federal property, and I have my own brand with presidential, for a long time, well, I think even to this day, they're still waiting to expand into New York, right? My actual strain is coming to New York sometime soon, but I wanted to bring my strain over, but I'm like, is it really worth getting pulled over by TSA, and going through this process over some weed that I could buy legally over there anyways, so I just left it alone. But, at the point that it's legal federally, then you could take it anywhere you want. You know, it feels good. Canada and Thailand, you could fly all through the country with your weed on any other, if you're rising another state or another, whatever it may be. Yeah. But certain states are still anti-weed, like for example, Georgia.

49:22Yeah. People get busted. I mean, Rolo got busted for moving weed. I mean, great. There's a lot of weed. Crazy. But it's still weed. And that's got to change soon, though, because Georgia's alive. I was out there, and I meet and greet recently, and there was a underground venue where people are doing their thing, pop-up tables, et cetera, you should feel it felt fucking great. It's they wanted there. And they're not going to be able to suppress it that much longer. And the whole TACA thing on a VC and that, like, there's loopholes in the farm building, people have been able to get away with that, and the counties and states are a little stricter. And so, it's not about that in their zone. I think that the whole administration right now is lost. It should have been pushed this through, and I feel like it's going to take a couple more generations if people are going to get out the way. Right. For example, Texas, another huge market, and it's still completely illegal in the entire state. Really? Most of the South. But they have the TACA laws in Texas, so there's dispensaries in Texas. We can go by fire. It looks just like that right now. And you can smoke it legally because it's TACA, so it's like in Texas and some of these red states, you can go, and I think Tennessee, there's a red state, we can go bi-weed, biogall,

50:27shoe guns on the same property, it's like insane. So the farm bill was a very big loophole, I feel like, you know, it's just a matter of time. Joe goes all the way. Well, Bernie, man, I appreciate you coming in. This is our first interview in eight years, actually. Man, long overdue, bro. I'm glad you're still doing your thing. I hope you enjoyed the bud. Yeah, of course, man. You brought me a little care package and to come from the Bay, because the thing about the Bay is that in the grand scheme of things, it's kind of a small town, especially to talk about entertainment and certain types of business and tech is huge, but that's about it. Yeah. So to come out of the Bay and create this big international brand, to come out of the Bay and have a music career, that's not just a local Bay music career. Yeah. 20 years. I've been making music for 20 years now. Exactly. I remember I looked it up recently, hold on, I pulled it up right now. You still have 2.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify. That's great. That song's like El Chivo's over 100 million streams.

51:30Crazy. I don't even know that. A, featuring YG and Logic is at 45 million streams, 20 joints, 85 million streams, faded 31 million streams. So remember in the beginning, I said hundreds of millions of streams. That's crazy, dawg. This is just Spotify. I'm not counting YouTube and I'm not counting Apple because you can't look up those numbers. But shit, maybe even a billion streams, if you added all up, I'm looking at about a billion streams right now, estimate. Hey man, that's like a fire. How does that feel? It feels good, dude. Yeah, especially because it's a passion project of mine still to this day. Yeah, yeah. Well Burr, man, I appreciate you coming back in. You got new babies. New babies, by the way. New babies, by the way. Do you have to make more too, man? Yeah. Yeah, we enjoy the club. Babies at 40, hit different, dude. I'm about to be 43 in October. It feels great to have babies, aren't you? Well, it's great to have babies when you could actually afford them. Yeah. And you could support the mother and support your kids. And unlike you and I, that want to certain things growing up, our parents just couldn't afford it. Yeah. Now, it's like, whenever my kids want, it's like, sure, I'm like, you know, like, my

52:33daughter's like, Dad, I want a Burberry jacket shirt. Just pick out the one you want. You can't. I don't even know what that was back in the day. Yeah, man. It feels great. Yeah. Well, listen, man. Congratulations, beating cancer. Another huge, another huge accomplishment. Yeah. That's so beer, bro. Yeah. And you've been losing weight recently. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Because, uh, honestly, man, you don't see too many of us in their 60s and 70s who are obese. No, yeah. You don't see fat 80 year olds. They don't make it. They don't make it. They don't make it. They don't make it. They don't make it. They don't make it. For everyone out there watching, I'm going to use my platform every time. Go get screen. Cold cancer is a real thing, especially in African Americans. And Latinos out there. Anyone under 50, go get screen. It's worth it. That's what it is. Burn it. Until next time. Peace.