Do You Wish You Were Still CEO of Canopy Growth? - Bruce Linton Got Fired and Now Plans a New Empire

Do You Still Wish You Were CEO of Canopy Growth? - Bruce Linton Tells Cannabis.Net Why He Was Fired

Do You Wish You Were Still CEO of Canopy Growth? - Bruce Linton on Getting Fired, Starting Fresh, and Big Weed from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

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Why was Bruce Linton Fired and Now What Comes Next?

Live from CanEx, Jamaica Cannabis.net sits down with Bruce Linton to find out why he got fired from Canopy Growth, what does he plan next in life, and would he still like to be CEO of Canopy Growth? Watch the must-see interview were Bruce also talks about his new Michigan job, his pet CBD research, and was he high when he said Cannabis.net is the best weed website online?

Read the interview now!

Curt: All right, cannabis.net is here with their used to be favorite unemployed Canadian CEO. But I can no longer call you that, Bruce Linton. How you doing?

Bruce Linton: Yes. No, it was funny how last week it was newsworthy, Canadian gets job.

Curt: And tell us a little bit about your new project. You have Weed Empire in Michigan, CBD pet stuff in Florida, and Slang.

Bruce Linton: Yeah. And that DNA, the guys out in California with the brands on that stuff. I'm involved with a psychedelic called Mind Medicine. So that one, basically back up a little bit further. What I really wanted to be able to do is three things. One, is have a global view. Two, is participate in the conversations with regulators at the beginning. To be able to sit down with FDA, animal care people and talk about what is it we're doing that's right or wrong. Be able to sit with the governor, be able to sit with a health leader in Germany. So I think that comes out of it. And then I wanted to get into stuff that's what's next, what's new. And I think the way that psychedelics have been treated is as bad or worse than cannabis. And that we've been unwilling to explore the therapeutic possibilities. So that bad treatment is the criteria by which my involvement comes.

Curt: And how did Michigan roll around? Being a Canadian, what was your choice there? Or what drove-

Bruce Linton: Well, so I wanted companies that I know well enough. And when I still go do the due diligence, that I know well enough that I can see it, the actors are going to act hard and do it right. And so some of the players in Gage are folks that I knew from operations up in Canada funding through from Canopy Rivers. And when I went and saw their places, awesome. I mean, they're a little crazy on the level of detail. So I'll give you an example. When I go to someone's facility and if they've done stuff, there's a curb, there's a little strip of grass, there's a sidewalk, there's a strip of grass, there's a fence.

Usually what people do is they'll put in a new sidewalk and they put new grass between the sidewalk and the fence. And then they make the stuff between the curb and the road look like shit. I hate that. Make it all look awesome. I want to walk up, it should all be awesome. These guys at Gage, that is exactly the level of detail they do. So everything they do, doesn't matter if you're looking at their HVAC systems or security controls, how they log in control, if you're nuts enough to make the grass between the curb and the sidewalk perfect, you're probably very, very anal. And in our sector that is a very key thing.

Curt: Yes, I notice you've always been very anal. Now there's an article going around on the internet that-

Bruce Linton: Eventually one of these times I'm going to come with you and I won't get beat up, but that's not this time.

Curt: There's a viral article on the internet claiming Bruce Linton created a cannabis empire and made one mistake. And the article says, "Because you're an Uber, not the car, but the Uber man intrepreneur, you just maybe didn't communicate, "When I get this money from Constellation, I'm going to buy everything at 40% off. If you want to make lots of money, don't buy my company right now." What's your thoughts on the theory that it was just a communication issue, and that you did the purchasing of and the assets right?

Bruce Linton: I would say it was an accounting challenge, which is even more boring than a communications challenge. And so the reason it was an accounting challenge is, and it's going to be the same for everybody. So when you have a slow growth, high cash flow, very profitable, big old company, what they don't have is growth. What they have is earnings per share. So every 90 days their shareholders want to say, "How well did you do in the last 90 days? Did you make a little more profit?" Tech companies or good cannabis companies, they're all about growth. And so what they do is they give equity to everybody, which causes a thing called stock based compensation costs.

And so the way our company would live, and I think tech companies is what's called adjusted EBITDA. So earnings per share versus adjusted EBITDA means you really have nothing to talk about the same. Because in my world I give everybody equity and I see it as free, even though it might show up on the books as 200 million in a quarter, it's not cash effecting, it's motivation creating. And so it doesn't hurt me. But if your earnings per share looks terrible. And if I need something I want to buy it or build it.

But if you're a earnings per share company, you want to lease it. Well I don't know, I can't lease half the stuff I want because nobody invented it. And once you invent it, you've got to build it. So I think the best marriages that will happen in the sector of cannabis and big companies will be big private companies. Because if you're a big private company, I don't care if you're distributing all the booze, private pharma company, you don't really care about earnings per share. You care about how's this going to work for my grandkids.

I'm a big humongous private company, it's all about next. And so I think over time those folks that are private big companies will become the primary participants in this sector and can align the easiest. And the earnings per share and the EBITDA guys will always have a bit of friction. But I don't think it will be about communications. The only way it could be is if the earnings per share company said that their shareholder view institutions, the reason I'm going to have a little less good earnings per share is accounting stuff, not real cash stuff. But I'm also going to have a company you're going to want to own for three times longer than you thought. That might be a way to communicate it out. But no, after that the communication I was always not wanting to do is pot company goes bankrupt. That is very bad communication. And so I think Kronos and Canopy are the only two companies right now. What's a sufficient depth of capital that that is not a contemplated headline? Everybody else I believe is at risk.

Curt: All things being equal, if it wasn't communication and it was accounting, do you wish you were still CEO of Canopy Growth today?

Bruce Linton: Yeah. I fundamentally miss leading and being the person that the people working there know is looking after things, looking after them, trying to make it a good environment. And so, CEO is a thing that you apply to, being a leader is what you are. And so I really miss being the leader there. I don't know that I'll ever have such a quick group of people come together with such passion again in my life. And so you have to continue to reflect on, that was a sweet thing and it makes you sad to miss it.

Curt: You once said cannabis.net was the best cannabis website online. Were you high when you said that?

Bruce Linton: I think there are several. You might've been high. Were you hallucinating or something when you heard that. No, I think I joke with you, but everywhere I go, every event I go to, there are going to be two or three people that I see that are hustling, and you're one of them. And so I give you props and I always sit down with you because ... And I always get back to your texts because you're basically out there doing it, and you don't have a paycheck coming from a big corporate.

You burden yourself with the expenses of being at everything. And so I give it credibility. The reason I'm at this event, it's not because it's CanEx Jamaica, it's because Douglas hustles hard. Douglas is trying to make it so that everybody in Jamaica smartens up on this idea that they're not competing with each other. They have to collaborate to move the needle. And he's trying to get people to work together here. And so I'm happy to come to be part of that. And so when I give you props, it's because you actually work.

Curt: Well, thank you. We appreciate the props. Thank you for your time, Mr. Bruce Linton. And adventures in three or four new companies, stay tuned. He is not in the grave as has been reported.

Bruce Linton: That's true, thanks.

Curt: Thanks, Bruce.

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Do You Wish You Were Still CEO of Canopy Growth? - Bruce Linton on Getting Fired, Starting Fresh, and Big Weed from CannabisNet on Vimeo.