November 17, 2024 • 53 mins
Explore the cutting-edge world of cannabis technology with Socrates Rosenfeld, the CEO and co-founder of Jane Technologies. Prepare to be intrigued by the potential shifts in federal cannabis reform as we discuss the surprising nomination of Matt Gaetz for US Attorney General by President-elect Trump. Join AnnaRae Grabstein as she recounts the latest developments in the cannabis industry from the Benzinga Cannabis Market Spotlight and Agrify's strategic acquisition of Señorita, marking a bold entry into the hemp beverage market.
Discover how Jane Technologies is reshaping the cannabis e-commerce landscape like no other. Socrates and AnnaRae (in Ben's absence) dive into the sophisticated digital infrastructure that aligns with consumer needs while keeping service costs low, unlike the pitfalls faced by giants like Uber and DoorDash. We tackle the importance of data standardization, the power of e-commerce automation, and the nuances of personalizing the cannabis shopping experience through Jane's innovative MyHigh initiative. Learn how these technological advancements are not only optimizing retail operations but also enhancing consumer engagement through personalized product recommendations.
Wrapping up, our conversation takes a reflective turn as we consider the evolution of the cannabis industry through various political administrations. We emphasize the resilience of this movement and its continued commitment to expanding access to cannabis. With insights drawn from leading a remote team and fostering innovation, this episode is a tribute to the pioneers who have shaped the industry and a call to stay united in pursuing sustainable growth amid a shifting political landscape. Tune in to embrace the dynamic world of cannabis technology and its promising future.
--
High Spirits is brought to you by Vertosa and Wolf Meyer.
Your hosts are Ben Larson and AnnaRae Grabstein.
Follow High Spirits on LinkedIn.
We'd love to hear your thoughts. Who would you like to see on the show? What topics would you like to have us cover?
Visit our website www.highspirits.media and listen to all of our past shows.
THANK YOU to our audience. Your engagement encourages us to keep bringing you these thought-provoking conversations.
Remember to always stay curious, stay informed, and most importantly, keep your spirits high.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
AnnaRae Grabstein (00:06):
Hey everybody , welcome to episode 68 of High
Spirits.
I'm Annarie Grabstein, yoursolo host today, as Ben is out
on the road somewhere in SouthCarolina.
It's Thursday, november 14th,and I am thrilled to be diving
into the future of cannabistechnology with none other than
Socrates Rosenfeld, the CEO andco-founder of Jane Technologies.
(00:30):
But before that, I am going tocheck in with you guys about my
week and some news.
I have had a great weekconnecting with California
cannabis leaders.
Shout out to some of the folksthat I spent time with at the
Benzinga Cannabis MarketSpotlight in Anaheim over the
last few days.
I saw friends like Dustin Moorefrom Embark, darren Story of
(00:54):
Coastal hung out with the teamfrom Ruckly, an up-and-coming
distribution company.
I picked up a really cool shirtfrom Lucia at Smoke Show.
It was a really great event.
I picked up a really cool shirtfrom Lucia at Smoke Show.
It was a really great event.
So thanks to the folks atBenzinga for having me and
having all of us to talk aboutCalifornia cannabis.
It's been quite the journey forall of us and it's nice to have
(01:15):
an event like Benzinga show upin our state and highlight the
issues that are going on here.
So that was really fun.
And then for a quick little newsroundup.
There's too much that hashappened that I just can't not
bring up today.
Last night, many of us heardthat Matt Gates was nominated
(01:35):
for the US Attorney General byPresident-elect Trump, and you
know Gates has consistentlyexpressed support for federal
cannabis reform.
He voted for the MORE Act whilehe was voting for things in the
House before he resigned, alsoyesterday, and he also voted for
safer banking.
Cannabis analysts think that hewill be good for the industry,
(01:59):
setting aside all of the hurdlesthat are coming with his
potential confirmation in theSenate and some of the other
political issues that people dohave problems with, with former
Representative Gaetz becomingthe attorney general.
So who knows what's happeningfor cannabis?
I would say that this was a bigsurprise.
We spoke with Hirsch last weekabout the election and nobody
(02:22):
really knew who was going to beput up for attorney general.
The fact that Matt Gaetz is thechoice shows that Trump is
really looking to surroundhimself with loyalists, but when
it comes to the cannabisindustry, I don't think that
there have been any promisesmade either way.
Some other notable news that Iwanted to bring up Agrify.
We have been paying attentionto in a new way since Ben Kovler
(02:45):
became the interim CEO, and GTIcommitted $20 million of
investment into the company.
So there was some interestingnews this week when Agri-Fi
announced that they wereacquiring Seniorita, which is a
THC beverage brand, from acompany called Double or Nothing
LLC.
It's an all-stock transactionand Double or Nothing is founded
(03:07):
by best friends and acclaimedwinemakers, charles Beeler and
Joel Gott, who have been reallywell known in the wine industry
and have grown and scaled anumber of different wine brands
in the space.
So this is really Ben Kovlerand Agrify putting a flag in the
ground that Agrify is going tobe doing hemp beverage.
(03:29):
So it's exciting to see this.
It's interesting to see whatwill follow.
Gti has mostly built brands,not bought brands, and so as
this category expands, it willbe interesting to see if this
new Agrify hemp beverage companyis going to be buying more
brands or building more brands.
(03:50):
A notable quote from Ben Kovlerwas that he said quote working
with Joel and Charles made sensefrom the start.
They have an unbeatableentrepreneurial mindset that we
needed Agrify to win this nextchapter of the cannabis story.
I'm excited for them to jointhe team as we work to close the
transaction and focus ongrowing the business.
(04:12):
So it very much sounds likeJoel and Charles are going to be
part of the team at Agrify andmost likely leading this new
beverage effort that Agrify hastaken on.
So I think that that is enough.
There is so much cannabis news,to be honest, but I've got a
really great guest in the greenroom and I want to bring him on,
(04:33):
so that is what I'm going to doand I will introduce him as
well.
Hello, socrates.
Socrates Rosenfeld (04:40):
Thank you so much.
It's a pleasure to be on yeah.
AnnaRae Grabstein (04:43):
Yeah, thanks for being here.
Socrates, you are theco-founder and CEO of Jane, a
platform that has transformedcannabis, e-comm and digital
access for consumers.
You left a military doctorcommander which sounds really
bad and you to address themarket's accessibility and
(05:05):
quality issues, ultimatelyfounding Jane with your brother
to improve the cannabis consumer.
Today, jane powers thousands ofdispensaries and brands and I'm
super glad to have you heretoday.
Socrates Rosenfeld (05:17):
Yeah, thank you so much for the introduction
and love the show.
It's just a pleasure to be on.
AnnaRae Grabstein (05:22):
Awesome.
You have been building intechnology for a while in
cannabis and I would just loveto hear, given your background,
how you see technologytransforming the consumer
experience and industryoperations in our space.
Socrates Rosenfeld (05:39):
In many ways .
You know, cannabis is a when wewere looking at this space
almost 10 years ago, we've seennow this opportunity where you
have so much demand around thisplant, for obvious reasons,
helps a lot of people, millionsand millions of people.
I think I read somewhere it'sgoing to be upwards of $40
billion market this year, whichis significant, and at the same
(06:04):
time, you have this interestingway for people to shop for
cannabis, which is at the retaillocation of a physical brick
and mortar store which outsideof groceries is becoming less
and less common, right?
If you think about any otherpackage, good, more and more
(06:25):
people are gravitating online.
We've still got a long way togo, but you start your shopping
experience at Amazon for mostthings.
If you're like me, legalizingand, I guess, quote unquote,
legitimizing the industry at atime when consumers were
(06:47):
shopping online and were veryused to shopping online for most
things, and so when we werethinking about, ok, how do we
position ourselves in this space?
We love the cannabis industry,first and foremost because this
plant helps people, includingmyself, people including myself
(07:07):
but second was it was anopportunity to show the world
that there was a new way foronline shopping to be done, and
what I mean by that is if we goback to this Amazon example.
I love Amazon as a consumer.
Right?
Bezos and his team have saidthat you start with the consumer
and you're working waybackwards.
They're obsessed with theconsumer to the point where, if
you're a brand on Amazon, it's acatch-22.
(07:30):
One you can reach many, manypeople, but at the same time,
you are losing out on the dataand information that Amazon's
capturing and Amazon's watching,and they've shown time and time
again that they will createtheir own products, and they've
shown time and time again thatthey will create their own
products, and so I'm more of anAmazon shopper than a brand
shopper.
At that point In cannabis, wesaw this opportunity for
(07:54):
technology to be the bridgebetween the online consumer and
the offline retailer.
AnnaRae Grabstein (07:58):
And this was from the beginning of the
creation of Jane.
You saw that.
Socrates Rosenfeld (08:01):
From the beginning.
Yeah, I was a sad, sorryconsultant before Jane and I was
studying tech companies tryingto compete against Amazon and at
the same time, I was studyingbrick and mortar retailers big
big ones like Walmart, cvs, etcetera who are also very
concerned about Amazon.
And here we had this confluenceof variables in a market that
(08:25):
allowed us to show could wecreate an Amazon-like experience
for consumers?
I love Amazon because I cansearch for anything I want, I
can compare by price, I can readreviews from actual consumers
who have purchased this productconsumers who have purchased
(08:46):
this product.
I have so much wonderfulcuration coming from Amazon
saying, hey, if you like this,other people bought that.
Or if you looked at this, youmight want to look at that.
And we said, okay, can we buildthat for the cannabis consumer?
That's how we can helpcontribute to the space on the
consumer side and not or.
And can we also help the brickand mortar retailer reach those
online consumers.
Have the curation on theirwebsite, allow for verified
(09:10):
reviews.
And here was this marriage that,quite frankly, we haven't seen.
The online and offline worldmerge outside of restaurants,
doordash, uber, eats, grubhuband I'm happy to talk about the
differences between thoseecosystems.
But that's really what excitedus almost 10 years ago and the
mission has really stayed thesame.
(09:31):
And I do want to highlight that.
Tech is one thing, but thepower of the plan is really why
we're doing what we're doing andit's icing on the cake to show
the world and we have a lot ofpatents to our technology to
show the the world.
You don't actually have tobuild another Amazon to do
e-commerce.
You can actually support smallbrick and mortar retailers and
drive online demand into thelocal neighborhoods, which we
(09:54):
think was pretty cool.
AnnaRae Grabstein (09:55):
Sure Well, bringing up Amazon and just
talking so much abouttraditional technology, I can't
help think about the potentialopportunity that was created for
cannabis technology because offederal small startups like
yours and others.
Do you agree?
Was that an opportunity?
(10:33):
Because it kept the big guys?
Socrates Rosenfeld (10:35):
Absolutely.
As a small startup, you have topick and choose where you
compete and the last thing wewant to do is, you know, pick
Amazon as a competitor orShopify early on.
We feel like actually I knowthis is maybe comes off as a
bold statement that we positionourselves quite advantageously
if and when those big playersever want to move into the space
(10:57):
.
We feel like we've been able todo the hard yards to put
ourselves in a position that'sgoing to be very difficult for
them just to flip the switch andmove in to cannabis because,
quite frankly, it's different Ifcannabis allowed for the Ubers
and DoorDashes of the world intothe space overnight.
I haven't met a localrestaurant here.
(11:20):
Where I'm at in Santa Cruz Iknow you went to UCSC there are
not a lot of restaurants thatare super stoked on DoorDash or
Uber Eats.
AnnaRae Grabstein (11:27):
Sure, I'll push back a little.
I mean, I know that Uber isdelivering cannabis in Canada
because it's federally legal.
And then we've seen some of thebig platforms come into the
hemp space because they feelenough protection legally.
So you've seen platforms likeShopify being like a major e-com
(11:48):
platform.
So don't you think that theywill come when they feel that
there's an opportunity, and willthey be acquiring you or
competing with?
Socrates Rosenfeld (11:57):
you, the argument is not if, it's when,
but really the conversationshould be on the how.
And here's what I mean DoorDashand Uber I guess we're going to
talk about restaurants rightnow.
Doordash and Uber are extremelypowerful logistics business.
I know pretty intimately thatUber wants to touch anything
(12:22):
that moves in this world Lastmile freight.
I would imagine they get intoair at some point, who knows?
But they aren't an e-commercebusiness and the reason behind
that you know same with DoorDashis because they haven't had to
be A restaurant's menu.
Let's take McDonald's, forexample.
(12:42):
Right, I haven't been toMcDonald's.
I have a rule like if I eatMcDonald's I've got to be at an
airport.
But wherever I am in the worldat an airport, I know the number
one value meal is the Big Mac,right?
No, matter where I'm at andthat's the Big Mac, and that
never changes that Big Mac.
(13:04):
A few things that Big Mac isnot sold outside of McDonald's.
It's not like Burger King orKFC is selling the Big Mac.
That Big Mac's not changing dayin and day out.
It's always going to be the BigMac.
And so, as a restaurant or asUber or DoorDash, if I'm a
restaurant I can just manuallyupdate my menu one time and that
(13:28):
will permeate and persist untilI decide to change it In high
frequency.
Retail dispensaries carry onaverage seven 800 SKUs on their
store shelves and those productsare changing over 15% day in
and day out.
And you got to think like theone-to-one pomegranate gummy
(13:50):
from Wild is sold acrossthousands of retailers.
Well, guess what?
The way those retailers code inthat one SKU is going to be
very different from store tostore to store to store.
Uber and DoorDash don't have tosolve that problem and we have
(14:10):
a lot of IP around ourcapabilities to cleanse that
data.
So that's one piece that'sgoing to be challenging for the
Ubers and DoorDash to figure out.
They haven't figured it out ingroceries either.
Or alcohol, et cetera.
They do the delivery, but ifyou've ever tried to order
alcohol on Uber, maybe it's notthe exact bottle of wine that
(14:33):
you want, or you go to Instacartand you try your favorite
cereal box cereal brand, andthat's not always available.
That's the reason why.
But I want to highlight one lastpoint on the how is the model?
It's expensive to deliverproducts, to insure a driver and
(14:54):
a car and all that stuff.
It's a very expensive business.
They pass that cost on to therestaurant and the consumer.
It's very expensive to get asandwich.
If I order a burrito in SantaCruz, it's going to cost me 30
bucks.
On DoorDash it's kind of nuts.
The restaurant makes very, verylittle margin as well, and it's
(15:21):
not because DoorDash and Uberare evil, it's just because they
have a model that is veryexpensive.
If we go back to your originalquestion as to hey, what would
happen if Uber or DoorDash wouldhave come into this space 10
years ago?
Prices would have been marginswould have been compressed for
the retailer.
And guess what, now, when Iorder from my local Mexican
restaurant in Santa Cruz onDoorDash which I don't do
(15:43):
anymore I call ahead and I goand pick up.
That restaurant has no idea whoI am.
Why?
Because DoorDash claims me astheir customer.
Is it fair?
Is it unfair?
I'm not going to be the one todecide that.
What I am saying, though, is wedon't think that we should be
disintermediating the consumerwith the local retailer.
(16:05):
In fact, we should be theinvisible bridge that connects
them, and because we don't haveto put drivers on the road, we
don't have to insure thosedrivers.
We are the digitalinfrastructure that enables this
sale.
We don't have to pass on somuch cost to the retailer, and I
think that's now, if you thinkabout what Instacart, doordash,
(16:25):
uber charges their supply side,their businesses that are on
their platform.
Very expensive, very costprohibitive Cannabis hasn't had
to experience that, which Ithink is a benefit and can
probably be correlated to thefact that these big businesses
couldn't move in at that point.
Now we're entrenched.
Now we've set the marketparadox.
So when not if Uber, doordashmove into the space, they're
(16:50):
going to have to figure out away to navigate and enter in as
partners in a balanced ecosystem, rather than the dominant
player taking all the customers,taking all the data, taking all
the margin.
AnnaRae Grabstein (17:01):
Sure, I hear you and I think you created a
good delineation between kind ofwhat is non-cannabis commercial
e-commerce technology but goinginto cannabis technology and
what's happening in the spacealready.
I just saw a graphic a few daysago that was one of those
technology market maps thatshows all these different
(17:23):
companies categories.
Yeah, and I mean it is avibrant ecosystem.
There are a lot more companiesthan there used to be and there
are companies that are focusingin certain areas and certain
solutions, and then I'm seeingdefinitely a move towards more
verticalization, meaning moresolutions in one platform for
companies to not have to belogging into different tools for
(17:47):
their e-com or their POS ortheir CRM and it all being in
one place, things like that.
When you were just talking aboutone of the differentiators of
the strategy of cannabistechnology versus what we saw
with Uber and DoorDash, you weretalking about data and clean
data.
This is a constant issue in theindustry because I think track
(18:13):
and trace and batches havecreated a lot of complexity with
, yes, maybe it's that sameone-to-one pomegranate gummy,
but there's a different batchnumber every single time it gets
made again and potentiallyslightly different test results
and things like that.
How do you look atstandardization of data so that
it can become useful both withinthe tech stack that you're
(18:33):
creating and managing, but alsoso that everybody can gain the
best business insights fromstandardized data.
What does that look like so?
Socrates Rosenfeld (18:43):
we have obsessed about this issue since
day one.
We have amassed the largestcannabis catalog in the world.
We have 2 million plus SKUs,all catalog photos, descriptions
, standardized taxonomy, servingsize, flavors, terpenes.
We have this hypothesis that ifwe could clean and organize an
(19:06):
entire industry's worth ofproduct information before
Google, before the big guys movein Amazon, et cetera, that
would allow us to unlock a lotof value for the industry, and I
can get into those details ifyou want.
We can automate e-commerce.
We can tell stores exactly whatSKUs to carry, how to price,
(19:29):
what are good compliments, whatare good substitutes.
We have an advertising businesswhich allows us to merchandise
individual SKUs, like Spotifyputs a song on your playlist
based on your propensity to buythese products.
Based on your propensity to buythese products.
So if you're an edible buyerand we know you love wild and
you've reviewed stuff for sleep,well, man, we can put the right
(19:51):
product in front of you at theexact right time.
Who benefits from that?
Everyone.
Everyone.
The consumer benefits from thatright Because you have
personalization.
The store benefits from thatbecause they don't have to
manually update a catalog.
They can just draw from oursand they can understand down to
the SKU level how their productsare performing, and then
(20:11):
ultimately the brand alsobenefits from this because they
can target the right customers.
And I use the word target.
So if you and I had a tincturecompany very niche product,
right why would I be spendingadvertising dollars, kind of
(20:34):
spraying and praying, hopingthat someone buys my tincture?
Wouldn't I want to be able tobe very efficient with my ad
spend to put my tincture infront of a person who has the
highest probability to buy thatproduct?
And you can only do that if youstandardize the data.
People talk about catalog aslike this broad sweeping, like
(20:55):
oh, we have a catalog, we have acatalog, we have a catalog.
It's one thing to amass acatalog, it's a whole other
thing to standardize that.
And back to the example.
Wild's going to get good plugshere on the show where that one
wild gummy, that pomegranategummy, against a single SKU on
average, against a single SKU onaverage.
There are thousands of ways toabbreviate that SKU misspell it,
(21:25):
code it.
Gti has a way to code it versusCresco, versus a small retailer.
We cleanse that through machinelearning and we have patents on
this now where we can identifyand say oh, you spelled wild in
a weird, crazy way, we actuallyunderstand that this is the wild
pomegranate gummy.
Let's load up your menu withthat exact product, let's
(21:46):
merchandise it for the brand and, ultimately, let's ensure that
the consumer is looking at theright product and knows exactly
what's on the store shelfwithout ever having to actually
walk into the physical brick andmortar store.
So that's what we do in termsof cleansing data, and we think
it's the backbone of thisindustry.
An industry with no data isreally an industry operating in
(22:07):
the dark, and we, like knowledgeis power and numbers don't lie,
and this is why we built thisglobal catalog 10 years ago.
AnnaRae Grabstein (22:16):
And so taking this global catalog 10 years
ago and so taking this globalcatalog concept into the larger
technology ecosystem.
The customers that you guys arebuilding for most likely are
working with other solutions.
At a minimum, they're workingwith at least their state's
track and trace tool and theyare likely working with a bunch
of other stuff on top of it aswell.
(22:36):
Are you sharing thestandardized data?
Is it connected to whether it'smetric or biotrack in a certain
state Like is it matching, oris this something that's just
inside of the Jane ecosystem?
Socrates Rosenfeld (23:00):
No, we integrate with over 100
third-party software providerstrack and trace, crm, point of
sale, virtual bud tendersbecause we believe that an open
ecosystem is a healthy ecosystemwhere everybody can win.
Closing that off is maybebeneficial to Jane, but it's not
beneficial to the industry andwe run every idea through the
filter of is this a win-win oris this a win-lose?
(23:20):
If it's a win-lose meaning Janewins but someone has to lose we
don't do it.
Like, hey, if Jane makes a lotof money but you know what, this
is going to mess up thedispensary, we don't do it.
Hey, jane's going to make a lotof money but that's going to
take advantage of the customerand exploit them just to click
on something.
We don't do it and we've left alot of money on the table,
(23:43):
because money and truth areseparate from one another in my
opinion, and we like to alignwith the truth and the truth is
in order to build a legitimateindustry that's going to last
forever.
It can't just be all about Jane.
So, yes, we do integrate withmultiple third parties.
We have a point of sale nowthat we've been talking about
(24:03):
verticalization that comes withthis catalog, so it can cleanse
all the state tracking stuff andthe way you present this to the
bud tenders or front facing tothe consumer is ran through the
Jane filter.
But we share that informationwith the other third parties
Because ultimately, again,that's what's in the best
interest of the consumer, thebrand and the retailer.
AnnaRae Grabstein (24:24):
I love what you said about truth, so I want
to double click on that a littlebit.
And so, while we're telling thetruth as business leaders,
there's multiple things that canbe true at once, and we can
both be competitive in themarketplace with other
businesses, but also be admiringwhat they're building and what
they're doing, and taking ideasthat we're seeing and
(24:47):
incorporating them into our ownbusiness.
And I I want to challenge youto tell us who you think either
people or companies that youfind are doing really
groundbreaking or interestingthings in cannabis technology
specifically.
Socrates Rosenfeld (25:02):
You're really putting me on the spot.
You know, we get inspired byeveryone all the players really
we have a saying at Jane thatwinning doesn't necessarily mean
beating.
Winning is playing your owngame, and we get inspired by
point of sale businesses thathave been around for a very long
time doing some reallyinteresting things.
(25:25):
For the bud tender, we saw thisreally cool user experience
where the store can customizethe way the flow of the checkout
goes, which I thought wasreally really cool.
I love a small company calledHappy Cabbage out there.
(25:45):
It's doing some reallyinteresting things in terms of
helping retailers understand howto discount and how to provide
promotions to the rightconsumers at the exact right
time.
We like this small companycalled Jointly that's doing some
really cool stuff as a virtualbud tender to help augment the
staff and then also provide morecuration for the consumer.
(26:09):
There are a lot of differentinteresting providers out there
and we draw inspiration from allof them, but ultimately, in a
way, we like to play our ownmusic.
We really like to drawinspiration not just from
cannabis tech but from alltechnology providers and and go
in there and use that asinspiration.
We get inspired by really coolinnovative plant touching brands
(26:32):
.
Know folks that have thecourage to not chase THC but
really differentiate themselvesthrough sun grown or you know
lower THC products with CBG andother cannabinoids and, you know
, integrated into the offering.
We love that stuff.
AnnaRae Grabstein (26:52):
Yeah, just differentiation within the
catalog is also probably nice,but within a sea of sameness.
Socrates Rosenfeld (26:58):
Yeah.
AnnaRae Grabstein (26:58):
Well, so, outside of the technology, of
the cannabis technology space, Iknow that you guys are doing
some, some stuff with AI, andyou know AI it has been an
emerging technology for the pastcouple of years.
I think that all of us arestarting to use it in different
ways, even just in the way thatwe produce this podcast.
(27:18):
I mean, I I probably have like10 AI touch points before I
publish this at the end of todayand um, it's just been so
incredibly useful and I haven'tquite seen it hit the cannabis
technology space in a forwardway yet, and I'm sure you guys
are thinking about this, workingon it.
(27:39):
What is the emergingtechnologies that you are most
excited about and that we'regoing to be seeing within your
development?
Socrates Rosenfeld (27:46):
Yeah.
So I think really good AIshould be invisible.
Really good technology shouldbe invisible like great design,
right, like you shouldn't knowthat you are, that there's AI
like happening when you fire upyour Netflix and they're
recommending shows to youYouTube, amazon, when you are.
(28:11):
My favorite is Spotify.
I draw the example a lot that II'm gonna repeat myself, but
this is what I do.
I'm sorry, nra.
So if anybody's like, oh,sock's gonna talk about music
again, here we go I love music,so all day long let's do it cool
, all right, cool, you lovemusic, right, everybody loves
music.
music's like cannabis, deep down, everybody loves it.
(28:32):
Yeah, you just, if you don'tlike it, you just haven't found
the right song or the rightartist and I say, yeah, don't I
also love Spotify.
AnnaRae Grabstein (28:40):
I've been like a paid Spotify user since
the day that I could be a paidand why do we love Spotify?
Socrates Rosenfeld (28:45):
right, it's a great, great way to curate and
discover new music, new artists.
It's almost like man, it's myown personal DJ.
So if you listen to a song andI listen to a song the exact
same song at the exact same timeyou might be crying and I could
be feeling, wow, so happy.
(29:07):
My wife loves music that makesme sad and she's like what are
you talking about?
This makes me so happy.
And then I'll listen to musicthat makes me really happy and
she's like what are you talkingabout?
This makes me so happy.
And then I'll listen to musicthat makes me really happy and
she's like this really kind ofbums me out.
So music is personal, right,it's very, very personal.
Cannabis is also extremelypersonal.
(29:29):
If you try a strain and I triedthe and you, we take a puff
from the exact same joint you'regoing to feel slightly
different, majorly different,than I am right, we're not going
to feel the exact same way,based on our endocannabinoid
system, et cetera.
How we're feeling that day.
What happened to us?
(29:50):
That what we eat this morning,all this stuff affects that this
morning, all this stuff affectsthat.
Well, if Spotify can get itright in terms of putting new
music in front of you that youhad never otherwise thought that
you would love.
Why can't we do that with theplant?
And so we've worked very hardfor the past.
(30:10):
You know, we built this catalogabout 10 years ago.
We've had a whole machinelearning team here at Jane
in-house for a few years now,and we've been working on
various algorithms.
One I'll talk about is whatwe've coined as MyHi.
You know, myhi this is myrelationship, my own personal
(30:31):
relationship with the plant, andso how does that manifest?
When you go on a menu, yourfavorite store's menu, you're in
Petaluma.
I'm sure there are great storesin Petaluma.
AnnaRae Grabstein (30:43):
No stores in Petaluma but in Sonoma County.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Socrates Rosenfeld (30:46):
Petaluma In Sonoma County.
If you go visit that store'swebsite and it's being powered
by Jane the products that yousee will be different than the
products I see.
It'll just be merchandiseddifferently, right?
Imagine going into a grocerystore.
I'm the worst at grocery storesbecause I'm going to out myself
(31:07):
.
I don't really go to thegrocery store too often.
When I'm going there, though, Ihave to like go up and down the
aisles and find what I need.
Imagine if they were like oh,socks just walked through the
door.
He loves these brands.
Here it is, just take it fromthe shelf and you're good.
Oh, and if you took this fromthe shelf, here's some new
things that you might like.
AnnaRae Grabstein (31:27):
Right, we can do.
How do you determine whensomebody walks in that store?
What data are you pulling aboutthe individual people?
Here's the cool part, right?
Is it just cannabis, pastpurchases, or is it like, oh, I
was on the Sephora website or Iwas on the Whole Foods website
and so now you can take thatand-.
I love the way you think we'renot there yet.
Socrates Rosenfeld (31:48):
It's within the cannabis ecosystem.
Okay, we're not there.
Like, hey, follow in Anna Rae,because that's kind of creepy,
that, oh, she went to Sephoraand spent this credit card.
But the cool part aboutcannabis and we do this online
and now we're integrating thisinto the in-store environment
through our self-service kioskand our point of sale the
coolest well, not the coolestpart about cannabis the coolest
part about cannabis is cannabis.
(32:09):
An interesting little variable,though, in the shopping
experience is that you have toshow your ID when you walk in
the store.
So I go to a local store andI've been there 50 times and
they treat me like I'm a newcustomer.
Every time this is made up, thelocal store knows because I
shop way too much.
But right, that's not great.
Like I've been there 50 times,you should know my name.
(32:31):
You should know the last time Icame here, you should know my
preferences, what I like, what Ididn't like.
That would be pretty cool if wecould empower the bud tenders.
The staff at that brick andmortar location say hey, Anna
Rae, welcome back.
Hey, we have these productsready for you.
We've got deals on yourfavorite brands.
Hey, here's another productthat we think you might like,
(32:53):
because we know you love mercinein an edible format to help you
cool out and go to sleep.
Here are some other new brandsthat are coming out.
Would you like to take a look?
AnnaRae Grabstein (33:04):
so I love this.
I think it's so important, and Irealize it because if I, I'm a
pretty disciplined person and soif I sit down to watch netflix
at the end of the day, I will gointo it with a like okay, anna
Rae, you're allowed to have 60minutes of screen time, the same
way I might talk to myseven-year-old and then you need
to sleep because sleep matters.
(33:25):
But at the end of that 60minute show, netflix already
just started this next show thatthey know that I want to watch
and all of a sudden I amwatching another hour of Netflix
because Netflix knows me sowell that they had an idea of
what I might like to watch.
But one of the things that Ithink is unique about cannabis
(33:47):
is that I mean, I'll out myself.
I would say that I am prettypolyamorous with my cannabis
preferences and that like it'snot like.
Oh, I bought a gummy withMersene one time and now, even
though I loved it, I only wantgummies with Mersene.
It's like I want to keep tryingdifferent things all the time
and some people are different.
(34:07):
I was talking to someone when Iwas at the event this week who
was saying that they have thisone strain that they love to go
back to time and time again, and90% of their cannabis
consumption is this one strain.
I'm like on the completeopposite.
I want to just try new stuffall the time.
So so when you're trying totrain a model to help the bud
tender when I walk in the storeor when that other person walks
(34:31):
in the store, how do you createthat technology?
What is going on?
Socrates Rosenfeld (34:38):
We have a saying I was a pilot, so I was
not smart, because the peoplethat were really smart took care
of the engines.
And I'd ask, I'd be like to thecrew chief, I'd be like, hey,
crew chief, how does this work?
And they'd tell me PFM.
And it took me a while tounderstand what PFM stood for.
(34:59):
The P is pure, the M is magic,and I'll leave it to your
imagination what the F standsfor.
So that's how we say, in themachine learning world, there
are millions, millions of datapoints that much smarter people
are trying to figure out at thecompany.
(35:19):
What I can say, though, is that, coming back to this music
analogy, if you just love hiphop and that's what you like to
listen to, and you're justlistening to hip hop all day
long Spotify is going to allowyou to go deeper and deeper into
hip hop.
Right, they're not going toshow you classical music, but if
you're using your word,polyamorous to music, musical
(35:41):
tastes, well, spotify is goingto treat you a little
differently.
We do the exact same thing.
So, like I'm not a big extractguy I don't, I don't smoke a lot
of hash or diamonds or resin,so those kinds of products are
further down in the menu, notharder for me to find, but less
(36:01):
prioritized.
I love flour, I like edibles, sothose are prioritized up more,
and it's not just hey, buy thisagain, buy this again, buy this
again.
It's would you like to buy thisagain?
And hey, would you like to buythis again?
And hey, would you like toexplore.
So it's um, it's reallypersonal to the customer in
terms of how we do that.
(36:23):
This is why I uh, I don't getnear any of those algorithms,
because there are a lot more,much more intelligent people on
that trying to try to figurethat out and the data is coming
back to you know, we do a prettypretty good job.
AnnaRae Grabstein (36:35):
Yeah, it's the magic.
I hear you Well, you'rebringing up the other people and
I, ben, and I, always like tothink about leadership and
scaling and growing companies,and you've been at this for a
while.
This is not a company that hasbeen around for 12 or 24 months.
You're close to a decade rightBuilding this, and my
(36:56):
understanding from when wetalked before is that you have a
fully remote team of 175 people.
Is that right?
Socrates Rosenfeld (37:01):
Yeah, that's right yeah.
AnnaRae Grabstein (37:03):
And so I would just I'd love to dive into
a little bit of the humanelement of building this thing.
You've talked about the purposeand the mission that's really
driving the creation and thegrowth and the vision behind the
company, but what has it beenlike leading a fully remote team
of 175 people While in thisfast moving industry?
(37:23):
How do you all keep up?
What's the magic?
Socrates Rosenfeld (37:26):
What's the magic?
I've led in various capacities.
I've been really lucky andfortunate to be in positions of
leadership since I was early 20s, leading platoons in Korea, the
company in Iraq.
This has been the mostfulfilling and challenging
(37:50):
leadership experience of my life, of my life.
Challenging in the sense thatit is remote and that you can't
see people, you can't touch them, you can't.
It's hard to feel over Zoom.
You know we do a pretty goodjob of it, but there's something
still like in part, it's likewatching live music, you know,
like there's something about itFulfilling in the sense, though,
(38:12):
that I feel like we've builtsuch a wonderful culture and
created a really safe space forpeople to be.
And so why is this working sowell?
I think number one.
You know if I'm a bad cook,I'll be the first one to admit
(38:34):
it, but if you gave me reallygood ingredients, I can make you
a decent sandwich and I'm notsaying a cook makes sandwiches,
but like that's, that's my level, right.
But if you give me the bestchef in the world and you give
them bad ingredients, I think mysandwich will taste better
because it has better tomatoes,you know, cheese, better bread,
(38:54):
et cetera.
In creating a recipe for acompany the ingredients are the
most important thing, and theingredients are the people.
And we take hiring.
It is the number one.
Most important thing that we dois attract, grow and retain
talent, and we don't need thebest people, we need the right
(39:17):
people.
We need people who are teamoriented, people who are willing
to operate in times ofuncertainty, people who can take
ownership when ownership needsto be taken, people who over
communicate, people whounderstand that this isn't about
just dollars and cents andwinning and beating, but that
there's an underlying mission toprovide access to a plant that
(39:39):
helps people, that what we dowill set forth a standard that
will be followed for decades tocome in this industry, not just
in the US but for the world.
And we've done that.
So that's that's kind of numberone.
An additional piece is leaders.
I see too many out here inSilicon Valley.
(40:00):
I say we're adjacent to SiliconValley.
We're not really in SiliconValley here in Santa Cruz.
You know this.
It's a very different culture,but this is like hero worship of
the guy, the girl, the onethat's going to take us to the
promised land.
Make all the decisions.
Elon Musk, oh, steve Jobs.
Invented the iPhone.
Oh my God, mark Zuckerberg,you're a genius with meta.
(40:22):
That's BS.
This is teams, and can youdelegate empower?
Take care of your team and theywill take care of the company.
I have some ideas.
I don't have the best ideas allthe time.
In fact, I got a lot of badideas most of the time.
But if you can create a spacewhere people can feel heard and
(40:45):
seen, they feel safe makingmistakes, what are you going to
get?
You're going to getunbelievable ideas dispersed
across the organization and notconsolidated to one.
That's why you got a lot ofCEOs saying you got to come back
to the office.
I got to watch exactly whatyou're doing.
Oh, I don't trust you.
Oh, we can't communicate.
Well, that's a sign of poorleadership here in a distributed
(41:08):
workforce.
At Jane, we have good leaders,good ingredients in the
employees and the right culturethat you can change the world
the employees and the rightculture that you can change the
world.
AnnaRae Grabstein (41:19):
So the people , the retention of talent,
fostering of leadership.
But in terms of an operatingsystem or how you create, I like
to talk about like the rhythmof business, where people can
figure out like the vessel forhow to foster leadership and how
to show up and what theexpectations are.
There's a lot of differentframeworks out there, especially
within technology.
(41:40):
There's lots of different waysthat people build and manage
products.
Do you subscribe to a certainsystem or have you created an
operating system, either foryourself or that you mentor and
train others on to help themlearn how to be leaders?
Socrates Rosenfeld (41:58):
We have a program called we say the
culture is our soil.
At, jane, if you're intogardening, if the soil is rich,
everything beautiful will growfrom it.
If the soil is toxic, you canget the best seeds in the world,
but they won't grow.
Maybe you've been part of thoseorganizations before anyway,
(42:19):
where you're like man, it'sreally toxic here and nothing's
growing except for more toxicity.
We, we, we do not subscribe tothat.
We, if we find a, a toxicperson which is extremely rare I
don be honest with you, Ihaven't found one yet at chain,
you know, we say, hey, this isprobably not a fit for you, you
(42:39):
got to go.
But in terms of, we don'tsubscribe to any like, I don't
know traditional, we do this andthis is what we do and it's,
you know this, scrum or agile,it's just leadership, it's
communication, often overcommunicating.
We have touch points everysingle day, from the CEO all the
(43:05):
way down to the org.
You are checking in with yourteam to start your day every day
.
AnnaRae Grabstein (43:10):
That sounds like an operating system.
That sounds like a clearexpectation.
Beautiful, okay, this is cool.
Socrates Rosenfeld (43:16):
I didn't know.
We had an operating system.
We have weekly cadences, wehave dashboards, we have reports
.
Every Friday, every Friday, theentire company comes together
for an hour and we give anupdate on the business, wins,
learnings.
And here's the most beautifulone, and I hope someone steals
(43:36):
this one day One employee, atthe end of every closeout, will
share what they are grateful for.
Take five, 10, 15 minutes andthe beautiful thing is you get
to learn about your teammate ina capacity that's not
transactional, and what we willstart to realize is, wherever
you're situated in the worldnorth, south, east, west, city,
(43:59):
rural, man, woman, old, young,black, white we're all grateful
for the same things and that'swhat ties us together.
And sometimes, most of the time, people say they're grateful
for Jane.
Some employees are like no, I'mnot saying that, that didn't
make my list, which iscompletely okay, but we realize
there's something there thatties us together.
(44:19):
Great culture creates resilientcompanies, and resilient
companies can work in remoteenvironments.
Poor culture doesn't createresilient companies.
And then what do you have to do?
You have to micromanage, youhave to consolidate, you have to
control and as someone who'sbeen part of those organizations
, you know the army is kind ofyou.
(44:41):
Could I have examples on bothboth worlds?
I wanted to create Jane, wherethis was a place where we could
treat you like an adult, like amature adult, and that you want
to be here, not have to be here,and I think that's paid off for
us.
AnnaRae Grabstein (44:56):
Yeah, I will absolutely say that you have an
operating system as someone thatworks with lots of companies.
It might be not a framework ofsomeone else's, but when I said
rhythm of business earlier andwe've talked about music and
clearly you're a music fan Ithink that creating a rhythm of
business is like.
That is the operating system,and it sounds like people on
(45:16):
your team have some things thatthey can depend on in terms of
what the structure looks likeand that, I believe, is one of
those pathways to creating thatsafe vessel for people to
explore and to make mistakes andto reinforce cultures that,
when they can depend on the waytheir leaders are going to show
up, they can depend on theexpectations of how they're
(45:37):
expected to show up.
And absolutely what you saidabout checking in on what's
going on in the business.
To be able to get that crosspollination of understanding
whether someone is in marketingor in product development, to be
getting insights into thingsthat are happening across the
ecosystem of the business, tohave better context and
(45:57):
understanding of the way thattheir work relates to other
pieces of work, can be reallyempowering Wow.
Socrates Rosenfeld (46:04):
That's cool, yeah, that you said that much
better than I did, and now I cansay, yeah, we do have an
operating system here at Jane,so thank you.
AnnaRae Grabstein (46:10):
You do.
Yeah, and it's one of thosethings I think is the
undercurrent of companies beingable to scale successfully, and
certainly in the context ofcannabis, where everybody has
been chasing profitability nowfor the past 24 months or so and
really focusing on being ableto create cash flow.
(46:31):
I will often look at acompany's financials and they're
asking questions about how dowe get there?
What are the moves that we needto make?
I think the clarity on missionacross the board and on what the
objectives are to align aroundthe biggest ones as a company
(46:52):
depends on the team, and withoutthat you're nowhere.
So, really cool.
Couldn't agree with you moreAwesome.
Well, we're getting close to thehour.
There's a few things that Ididn't get to talk with you
about today.
I think that before we move tolast call, I would love to get
your take on how much you aregetting involved in policy there
(47:13):
.
You know we're on the back ofthis really complicated,
divisive election that justhappened.
We don't really know what thisnew administration is going to
be doing with cannabis, but I'mcurious how you think of policy
and navigating regulations andlaws and planning for the future
for Jane.
Socrates Rosenfeld (47:32):
You know this is our third or fourth.
Actually.
When we started, obama waspresident, then we went through
a Trump administration, thenBiden, now back to Trump.
It's kind of our fourth run.
Now, can I?
I don't want to sound this isnot kind of blowing off the
question, but it does matter.
It definitely does matter.
(47:54):
It matters more broadly thancannabis, in my opinion, but for
us it's not.
If it's how we're going to dothis, it's not.
Oh, if Matt Gaetz does this orit's just like cool, whatever
comes to us, we're not going tostop.
We are committed to building, toplaying our part it's not just
(48:15):
jane to playing our part to makesure that this plant is given
the legitimacy, the respect thatit deserves.
It's been helping people formillions well, I shouldn't say
millions of years, tens ofthousands of years, maybe
millions, I don't know.
Uh, long time, yeah, long time.
And for us to get to this pointwhen we started was colorado,
(48:40):
was legal colorado, oregon, thatwas it.
And now, look, we have, we'rein 39 states.
Canada's legalized, europe'sgoing.
We were when.
Who was the attorney generalwhen?
Trump in 2016?
Jeff, thank you.
The dude from Alabama.
Oh my God, we were so scared.
(49:01):
Oh, what's going to happen?
Oh hey, mission continues.
We'll go figure this out,because we're not here to say,
oh, let's just get tolegalization and that's our exit
.
There is no exit for us.
We're building this thing tolast for as long as it could
possibly last.
We're not going to kind of swayand get so sensitive to kind of
(49:25):
who's sitting in the seat.
Do we pay attention to it?
Absolutely, is that important?
Yes, but it's not the onlything.
And for us, the way we navigateit is we have an end state in
mind or no end state in mind.
It's actually kind of let's go,continue to do everything we
can to expand the access to thisplant and take care of
businesses along the way, andthe rest will take care of
(49:47):
itself.
And I know that sounds prettytrite, but it's the truth and
this is how we we navigate.
You know it's disappointing inflorida, man, it's one of the I
never understand us politicswhen you can get a majority vote
and still won't pass yeah right, we know it's not.
Oh god, florida's never going tolegalize.
It's like okay, it's when peoplearen't going to stop consuming
(50:08):
cannabis in florida, and we knowthat it's when yeah alabama,
it's when, south carolina it'swhen and we're in terms of
profitability and getting there.
We are committed to being herefor the long term so that we can
.
I would love to to ring thebell and be like man.
A 50th state, now legalized DC,is ready to go like federal
(50:29):
legalization is there.
We want to be around for that,and whether that's in a Trump
administration or futureadministrations, the story is
yet to be written and we're herefor it.
AnnaRae Grabstein (50:40):
I love it.
Well, that brings us to the endof the hour and it is our last
call.
So, socrates, this is yourchance to leave a lasting
impression on our listeners.
Any advice, call to action, amessage for those shaping the
future in cannabis.
What is your last call?
Socrates Rosenfeld (50:57):
In a very divided country right now.
They I don't know who they is,but they've succeeded in
dividing us between red and blue, et cetera, et cetera, et
cetera.
Cannabis is truly one of thefew things that unites us.
Republicans smoke, democratssmoke, city people smoke, rural
(51:22):
people smoke.
So let's ensure that we stayunited.
I was so fortunate to enter thisindustry during the medical
days.
Where were there some folks whoare just exploiting you know
this like gray area?
Of course, sure, and there wasa lot of folks here for the
(51:46):
mission to to really say, yeah,man, this, this plan helped me,
so I'm here committing my lifeto help this plan.
I was one of those people.
I got to meet some reallyextremely impressive pioneers
that we don't know their names,right val corral, dennis perrone
, steve d'angelo, like debbiegolds, like folks that really
(52:07):
were on the forefront of this.
Let's not forget what we'refighting for.
It's not to make VCs a bunch ofmoney only.
It's not to IPO.
It's not to win or beat thecompetitor man.
Let's not forget why we'redoing this.
Let's not forget the veteranswho need this plant.
(52:28):
Let's not forget the people whoare getting off of opioids
because of this plant Thousands,millions of examples.
So let's remember that cannabistruly is a healing of a nation.
Let's not forget the why and ifwe can do that, this is how
we're going to build an industrythat lasts, because if we start
dividing, we start trying tofight all the time, and that's
(52:51):
the purpose of our business.
We're not going to make anyprogress.
So let's continue to rememberour why, share that with the
world, get inspired by others,but ultimately play our music
and I have faith that the restwill take care of itself.
You know, we're still standinghere, 10 years, a few different
presidents, and I don't thinkthat's going to change moving
(53:12):
forward.
AnnaRae Grabstein (53:14):
Nice.
Well, thank you so much forbeing here.
Really appreciate you sharingand it's been a great
conversation.
So what'd you think, folks?
Did you learn something as wewrap?
Remember that the dialogue doesnot have to stop here.
We invite you to continue theseconversations with us.
Engage with us online.
Let us know what kind ofconversations you want to have.
(53:35):
If you liked this episode,share it with your friends,
follow us on LinkedIn and othersocial platforms, and remember
to stay curious, to stayinformed and, most importantly,
to keep your spirits high.
Until the next time, have agood one.
Hey everybody , welcome to episode 68 of High
Spirits.
I'm Annarie Grabstein, yoursolo host today, as Ben is out
on the road somewhere in SouthCarolina.
It's Thursday, november 14th,and I am thrilled to be diving
into the future of cannabistechnology with none other than
Socrates Rosenfeld, the CEO andco-founder of Jane Technologies.
(00:30):
But before that, I am going tocheck in with you guys about my
week and some news.
I have had a great weekconnecting with California
cannabis leaders.
Shout out to some of the folksthat I spent time with at the
Benzinga Cannabis MarketSpotlight in Anaheim over the
last few days.
I saw friends like Dustin Moorefrom Embark, darren Story of
(00:54):
Coastal hung out with the teamfrom Ruckly, an up-and-coming
distribution company.
I picked up a really cool shirtfrom Lucia at Smoke Show.
It was a really great event.
I picked up a really cool shirtfrom Lucia at Smoke Show.
It was a really great event.
So thanks to the folks atBenzinga for having me and
having all of us to talk aboutCalifornia cannabis.
It's been quite the journey forall of us and it's nice to have
(01:15):
an event like Benzinga show upin our state and highlight the
issues that are going on here.
So that was really fun.
And then for a quick little newsroundup.
There's too much that hashappened that I just can't not
bring up today.
Last night, many of us heardthat Matt Gates was nominated
(01:35):
for the US Attorney General byPresident-elect Trump, and you
know Gates has consistentlyexpressed support for federal
cannabis reform.
He voted for the MORE Act whilehe was voting for things in the
House before he resigned, alsoyesterday, and he also voted for
safer banking.
Cannabis analysts think that hewill be good for the industry,
(01:59):
setting aside all of the hurdlesthat are coming with his
potential confirmation in theSenate and some of the other
political issues that people dohave problems with, with former
Representative Gaetz becomingthe attorney general.
So who knows what's happeningfor cannabis?
I would say that this was a bigsurprise.
We spoke with Hirsch last weekabout the election and nobody
(02:22):
really knew who was going to beput up for attorney general.
The fact that Matt Gaetz is thechoice shows that Trump is
really looking to surroundhimself with loyalists, but when
it comes to the cannabisindustry, I don't think that
there have been any promisesmade either way.
Some other notable news that Iwanted to bring up Agrify.
We have been paying attentionto in a new way since Ben Kovler
(02:45):
became the interim CEO, and GTIcommitted $20 million of
investment into the company.
So there was some interestingnews this week when Agri-Fi
announced that they wereacquiring Seniorita, which is a
THC beverage brand, from acompany called Double or Nothing
LLC.
It's an all-stock transactionand Double or Nothing is founded
(03:07):
by best friends and acclaimedwinemakers, charles Beeler and
Joel Gott, who have been reallywell known in the wine industry
and have grown and scaled anumber of different wine brands
in the space.
So this is really Ben Kovlerand Agrify putting a flag in the
ground that Agrify is going tobe doing hemp beverage.
(03:29):
So it's exciting to see this.
It's interesting to see whatwill follow.
Gti has mostly built brands,not bought brands, and so as
this category expands, it willbe interesting to see if this
new Agrify hemp beverage companyis going to be buying more
brands or building more brands.
(03:50):
A notable quote from Ben Kovlerwas that he said quote working
with Joel and Charles made sensefrom the start.
They have an unbeatableentrepreneurial mindset that we
needed Agrify to win this nextchapter of the cannabis story.
I'm excited for them to jointhe team as we work to close the
transaction and focus ongrowing the business.
(04:12):
So it very much sounds likeJoel and Charles are going to be
part of the team at Agrify andmost likely leading this new
beverage effort that Agrify hastaken on.
So I think that that is enough.
There is so much cannabis news,to be honest, but I've got a
really great guest in the greenroom and I want to bring him on,
(04:33):
so that is what I'm going to doand I will introduce him as
well.
Hello, socrates.
Socrates Rosenfeld (04:40):
Thank you so much.
It's a pleasure to be on yeah.
AnnaRae Grabstein (04:43):
Yeah, thanks for being here.
Socrates, you are theco-founder and CEO of Jane, a
platform that has transformedcannabis, e-comm and digital
access for consumers.
You left a military doctorcommander which sounds really
bad and you to address themarket's accessibility and
(05:05):
quality issues, ultimatelyfounding Jane with your brother
to improve the cannabis consumer.
Today, jane powers thousands ofdispensaries and brands and I'm
super glad to have you heretoday.
Socrates Rosenfeld (05:17):
Yeah, thank you so much for the introduction
and love the show.
It's just a pleasure to be on.
AnnaRae Grabstein (05:22):
Awesome.
You have been building intechnology for a while in
cannabis and I would just loveto hear, given your background,
how you see technologytransforming the consumer
experience and industryoperations in our space.
Socrates Rosenfeld (05:39):
In many ways .
You know, cannabis is a when wewere looking at this space
almost 10 years ago, we've seennow this opportunity where you
have so much demand around thisplant, for obvious reasons,
helps a lot of people, millionsand millions of people.
I think I read somewhere it'sgoing to be upwards of $40
billion market this year, whichis significant, and at the same
(06:04):
time, you have this interestingway for people to shop for
cannabis, which is at the retaillocation of a physical brick
and mortar store which outsideof groceries is becoming less
and less common, right?
If you think about any otherpackage, good, more and more
(06:25):
people are gravitating online.
We've still got a long way togo, but you start your shopping
experience at Amazon for mostthings.
If you're like me, legalizingand, I guess, quote unquote,
legitimizing the industry at atime when consumers were
(06:47):
shopping online and were veryused to shopping online for most
things, and so when we werethinking about, ok, how do we
position ourselves in this space?
We love the cannabis industry,first and foremost because this
plant helps people, includingmyself, people including myself
(07:07):
but second was it was anopportunity to show the world
that there was a new way foronline shopping to be done, and
what I mean by that is if we goback to this Amazon example.
I love Amazon as a consumer.
Right?
Bezos and his team have saidthat you start with the consumer
and you're working waybackwards.
They're obsessed with theconsumer to the point where, if
you're a brand on Amazon, it's acatch-22.
(07:30):
One you can reach many, manypeople, but at the same time,
you are losing out on the dataand information that Amazon's
capturing and Amazon's watching,and they've shown time and time
again that they will createtheir own products, and they've
shown time and time again thatthey will create their own
products, and so I'm more of anAmazon shopper than a brand
shopper.
At that point In cannabis, wesaw this opportunity for
(07:54):
technology to be the bridgebetween the online consumer and
the offline retailer.
AnnaRae Grabstein (07:58):
And this was from the beginning of the
creation of Jane.
You saw that.
Socrates Rosenfeld (08:01):
From the beginning.
Yeah, I was a sad, sorryconsultant before Jane and I was
studying tech companies tryingto compete against Amazon and at
the same time, I was studyingbrick and mortar retailers big
big ones like Walmart, cvs, etcetera who are also very
concerned about Amazon.
And here we had this confluenceof variables in a market that
(08:25):
allowed us to show could wecreate an Amazon-like experience
for consumers?
I love Amazon because I cansearch for anything I want, I
can compare by price, I can readreviews from actual consumers
who have purchased this productconsumers who have purchased
(08:46):
this product.
I have so much wonderfulcuration coming from Amazon
saying, hey, if you like this,other people bought that.
Or if you looked at this, youmight want to look at that.
And we said, okay, can we buildthat for the cannabis consumer?
That's how we can helpcontribute to the space on the
consumer side and not or.
And can we also help the brickand mortar retailer reach those
online consumers.
Have the curation on theirwebsite, allow for verified
(09:10):
reviews.
And here was this marriage that,quite frankly, we haven't seen.
The online and offline worldmerge outside of restaurants,
doordash, uber, eats, grubhuband I'm happy to talk about the
differences between thoseecosystems.
But that's really what excitedus almost 10 years ago and the
mission has really stayed thesame.
(09:31):
And I do want to highlight that.
Tech is one thing, but thepower of the plan is really why
we're doing what we're doing andit's icing on the cake to show
the world and we have a lot ofpatents to our technology to
show the the world.
You don't actually have tobuild another Amazon to do
e-commerce.
You can actually support smallbrick and mortar retailers and
drive online demand into thelocal neighborhoods, which we
(09:54):
think was pretty cool.
AnnaRae Grabstein (09:55):
Sure Well, bringing up Amazon and just
talking so much abouttraditional technology, I can't
help think about the potentialopportunity that was created for
cannabis technology because offederal small startups like
yours and others.
Do you agree?
Was that an opportunity?
(10:33):
Because it kept the big guys?
Socrates Rosenfeld (10:35):
Absolutely.
As a small startup, you have topick and choose where you
compete and the last thing wewant to do is, you know, pick
Amazon as a competitor orShopify early on.
We feel like actually I knowthis is maybe comes off as a
bold statement that we positionourselves quite advantageously
if and when those big playersever want to move into the space
(10:57):
.
We feel like we've been able todo the hard yards to put
ourselves in a position that'sgoing to be very difficult for
them just to flip the switch andmove in to cannabis because,
quite frankly, it's different Ifcannabis allowed for the Ubers
and DoorDashes of the world intothe space overnight.
I haven't met a localrestaurant here.
(11:20):
Where I'm at in Santa Cruz Iknow you went to UCSC there are
not a lot of restaurants thatare super stoked on DoorDash or
Uber Eats.
AnnaRae Grabstein (11:27):
Sure, I'll push back a little.
I mean, I know that Uber isdelivering cannabis in Canada
because it's federally legal.
And then we've seen some of thebig platforms come into the
hemp space because they feelenough protection legally.
So you've seen platforms likeShopify being like a major e-com
(11:48):
platform.
So don't you think that theywill come when they feel that
there's an opportunity, and willthey be acquiring you or
competing with?
Socrates Rosenfeld (11:57):
you, the argument is not if, it's when,
but really the conversationshould be on the how.
And here's what I mean DoorDashand Uber I guess we're going to
talk about restaurants rightnow.
Doordash and Uber are extremelypowerful logistics business.
I know pretty intimately thatUber wants to touch anything
(12:22):
that moves in this world Lastmile freight.
I would imagine they get intoair at some point, who knows?
But they aren't an e-commercebusiness and the reason behind
that you know same with DoorDashis because they haven't had to
be A restaurant's menu.
Let's take McDonald's, forexample.
(12:42):
Right, I haven't been toMcDonald's.
I have a rule like if I eatMcDonald's I've got to be at an
airport.
But wherever I am in the worldat an airport, I know the number
one value meal is the Big Mac,right?
No, matter where I'm at andthat's the Big Mac, and that
never changes that Big Mac.
(13:04):
A few things that Big Mac isnot sold outside of McDonald's.
It's not like Burger King orKFC is selling the Big Mac.
That Big Mac's not changing dayin and day out.
It's always going to be the BigMac.
And so, as a restaurant or asUber or DoorDash, if I'm a
restaurant I can just manuallyupdate my menu one time and that
(13:28):
will permeate and persist untilI decide to change it In high
frequency.
Retail dispensaries carry onaverage seven 800 SKUs on their
store shelves and those productsare changing over 15% day in
and day out.
And you got to think like theone-to-one pomegranate gummy
(13:50):
from Wild is sold acrossthousands of retailers.
Well, guess what?
The way those retailers code inthat one SKU is going to be
very different from store tostore to store to store.
Uber and DoorDash don't have tosolve that problem and we have
(14:10):
a lot of IP around ourcapabilities to cleanse that
data.
So that's one piece that'sgoing to be challenging for the
Ubers and DoorDash to figure out.
They haven't figured it out ingroceries either.
Or alcohol, et cetera.
They do the delivery, but ifyou've ever tried to order
alcohol on Uber, maybe it's notthe exact bottle of wine that
(14:33):
you want, or you go to Instacartand you try your favorite
cereal box cereal brand, andthat's not always available.
That's the reason why.
But I want to highlight one lastpoint on the how is the model?
It's expensive to deliverproducts, to insure a driver and
(14:54):
a car and all that stuff.
It's a very expensive business.
They pass that cost on to therestaurant and the consumer.
It's very expensive to get asandwich.
If I order a burrito in SantaCruz, it's going to cost me 30
bucks.
On DoorDash it's kind of nuts.
The restaurant makes very, verylittle margin as well, and it's
(15:21):
not because DoorDash and Uberare evil, it's just because they
have a model that is veryexpensive.
If we go back to your originalquestion as to hey, what would
happen if Uber or DoorDash wouldhave come into this space 10
years ago?
Prices would have been marginswould have been compressed for
the retailer.
And guess what, now, when Iorder from my local Mexican
restaurant in Santa Cruz onDoorDash which I don't do
(15:43):
anymore I call ahead and I goand pick up.
That restaurant has no idea whoI am.
Why?
Because DoorDash claims me astheir customer.
Is it fair?
Is it unfair?
I'm not going to be the one todecide that.
What I am saying, though, is wedon't think that we should be
disintermediating the consumerwith the local retailer.
(16:05):
In fact, we should be theinvisible bridge that connects
them, and because we don't haveto put drivers on the road, we
don't have to insure thosedrivers.
We are the digitalinfrastructure that enables this
sale.
We don't have to pass on somuch cost to the retailer, and I
think that's now, if you thinkabout what Instacart, doordash,
(16:25):
uber charges their supply side,their businesses that are on
their platform.
Very expensive, very costprohibitive Cannabis hasn't had
to experience that, which Ithink is a benefit and can
probably be correlated to thefact that these big businesses
couldn't move in at that point.
Now we're entrenched.
Now we've set the marketparadox.
So when not if Uber, doordashmove into the space, they're
(16:50):
going to have to figure out away to navigate and enter in as
partners in a balanced ecosystem, rather than the dominant
player taking all the customers,taking all the data, taking all
the margin.
AnnaRae Grabstein (17:01):
Sure, I hear you and I think you created a
good delineation between kind ofwhat is non-cannabis commercial
e-commerce technology but goinginto cannabis technology and
what's happening in the spacealready.
I just saw a graphic a few daysago that was one of those
technology market maps thatshows all these different
(17:23):
companies categories.
Yeah, and I mean it is avibrant ecosystem.
There are a lot more companiesthan there used to be and there
are companies that are focusingin certain areas and certain
solutions, and then I'm seeingdefinitely a move towards more
verticalization, meaning moresolutions in one platform for
companies to not have to belogging into different tools for
(17:47):
their e-com or their POS ortheir CRM and it all being in
one place, things like that.
When you were just talking aboutone of the differentiators of
the strategy of cannabistechnology versus what we saw
with Uber and DoorDash, you weretalking about data and clean
data.
This is a constant issue in theindustry because I think track
(18:13):
and trace and batches havecreated a lot of complexity with
, yes, maybe it's that sameone-to-one pomegranate gummy,
but there's a different batchnumber every single time it gets
made again and potentiallyslightly different test results
and things like that.
How do you look atstandardization of data so that
it can become useful both withinthe tech stack that you're
(18:33):
creating and managing, but alsoso that everybody can gain the
best business insights fromstandardized data.
What does that look like so?
Socrates Rosenfeld (18:43):
we have obsessed about this issue since
day one.
We have amassed the largestcannabis catalog in the world.
We have 2 million plus SKUs,all catalog photos, descriptions
, standardized taxonomy, servingsize, flavors, terpenes.
We have this hypothesis that ifwe could clean and organize an
(19:06):
entire industry's worth ofproduct information before
Google, before the big guys movein Amazon, et cetera, that
would allow us to unlock a lotof value for the industry, and I
can get into those details ifyou want.
We can automate e-commerce.
We can tell stores exactly whatSKUs to carry, how to price,
(19:29):
what are good compliments, whatare good substitutes.
We have an advertising businesswhich allows us to merchandise
individual SKUs, like Spotifyputs a song on your playlist
based on your propensity to buythese products.
Based on your propensity to buythese products.
So if you're an edible buyerand we know you love wild and
you've reviewed stuff for sleep,well, man, we can put the right
(19:51):
product in front of you at theexact right time.
Who benefits from that?
Everyone.
Everyone.
The consumer benefits from thatright Because you have
personalization.
The store benefits from thatbecause they don't have to
manually update a catalog.
They can just draw from oursand they can understand down to
the SKU level how their productsare performing, and then
(20:11):
ultimately the brand alsobenefits from this because they
can target the right customers.
And I use the word target.
So if you and I had a tincturecompany very niche product,
right why would I be spendingadvertising dollars, kind of
(20:34):
spraying and praying, hopingthat someone buys my tincture?
Wouldn't I want to be able tobe very efficient with my ad
spend to put my tincture infront of a person who has the
highest probability to buy thatproduct?
And you can only do that if youstandardize the data.
People talk about catalog aslike this broad sweeping, like
(20:55):
oh, we have a catalog, we have acatalog, we have a catalog.
It's one thing to amass acatalog, it's a whole other
thing to standardize that.
And back to the example.
Wild's going to get good plugshere on the show where that one
wild gummy, that pomegranategummy, against a single SKU on
average, against a single SKU onaverage.
There are thousands of ways toabbreviate that SKU misspell it,
(21:25):
code it.
Gti has a way to code it versusCresco, versus a small retailer.
We cleanse that through machinelearning and we have patents on
this now where we can identifyand say oh, you spelled wild in
a weird, crazy way, we actuallyunderstand that this is the wild
pomegranate gummy.
Let's load up your menu withthat exact product, let's
(21:46):
merchandise it for the brand and, ultimately, let's ensure that
the consumer is looking at theright product and knows exactly
what's on the store shelfwithout ever having to actually
walk into the physical brick andmortar store.
So that's what we do in termsof cleansing data, and we think
it's the backbone of thisindustry.
An industry with no data isreally an industry operating in
(22:07):
the dark, and we, like knowledgeis power and numbers don't lie,
and this is why we built thisglobal catalog 10 years ago.
AnnaRae Grabstein (22:16):
And so taking this global catalog 10 years
ago and so taking this globalcatalog concept into the larger
technology ecosystem.
The customers that you guys arebuilding for most likely are
working with other solutions.
At a minimum, they're workingwith at least their state's
track and trace tool and theyare likely working with a bunch
of other stuff on top of it aswell.
(22:36):
Are you sharing thestandardized data?
Is it connected to whether it'smetric or biotrack in a certain
state Like is it matching, oris this something that's just
inside of the Jane ecosystem?
Socrates Rosenfeld (23:00):
No, we integrate with over 100
third-party software providerstrack and trace, crm, point of
sale, virtual bud tendersbecause we believe that an open
ecosystem is a healthy ecosystemwhere everybody can win.
Closing that off is maybebeneficial to Jane, but it's not
beneficial to the industry andwe run every idea through the
filter of is this a win-win oris this a win-lose?
(23:20):
If it's a win-lose meaning Janewins but someone has to lose we
don't do it.
Like, hey, if Jane makes a lotof money but you know what, this
is going to mess up thedispensary, we don't do it.
Hey, jane's going to make a lotof money but that's going to
take advantage of the customerand exploit them just to click
on something.
We don't do it and we've left alot of money on the table,
(23:43):
because money and truth areseparate from one another in my
opinion, and we like to alignwith the truth and the truth is
in order to build a legitimateindustry that's going to last
forever.
It can't just be all about Jane.
So, yes, we do integrate withmultiple third parties.
We have a point of sale nowthat we've been talking about
(24:03):
verticalization that comes withthis catalog, so it can cleanse
all the state tracking stuff andthe way you present this to the
bud tenders or front facing tothe consumer is ran through the
Jane filter.
But we share that informationwith the other third parties
Because ultimately, again,that's what's in the best
interest of the consumer, thebrand and the retailer.
AnnaRae Grabstein (24:24):
I love what you said about truth, so I want
to double click on that a littlebit.
And so, while we're telling thetruth as business leaders,
there's multiple things that canbe true at once, and we can
both be competitive in themarketplace with other
businesses, but also be admiringwhat they're building and what
they're doing, and taking ideasthat we're seeing and
(24:47):
incorporating them into our ownbusiness.
And I I want to challenge youto tell us who you think either
people or companies that youfind are doing really
groundbreaking or interestingthings in cannabis technology
specifically.
Socrates Rosenfeld (25:02):
You're really putting me on the spot.
You know, we get inspired byeveryone all the players really
we have a saying at Jane thatwinning doesn't necessarily mean
beating.
Winning is playing your owngame, and we get inspired by
point of sale businesses thathave been around for a very long
time doing some reallyinteresting things.
(25:25):
For the bud tender, we saw thisreally cool user experience
where the store can customizethe way the flow of the checkout
goes, which I thought wasreally really cool.
I love a small company calledHappy Cabbage out there.
(25:45):
It's doing some reallyinteresting things in terms of
helping retailers understand howto discount and how to provide
promotions to the rightconsumers at the exact right
time.
We like this small companycalled Jointly that's doing some
really cool stuff as a virtualbud tender to help augment the
staff and then also provide morecuration for the consumer.
(26:09):
There are a lot of differentinteresting providers out there
and we draw inspiration from allof them, but ultimately, in a
way, we like to play our ownmusic.
We really like to drawinspiration not just from
cannabis tech but from alltechnology providers and and go
in there and use that asinspiration.
We get inspired by really coolinnovative plant touching brands
(26:32):
.
Know folks that have thecourage to not chase THC but
really differentiate themselvesthrough sun grown or you know
lower THC products with CBG andother cannabinoids and, you know
, integrated into the offering.
We love that stuff.
AnnaRae Grabstein (26:52):
Yeah, just differentiation within the
catalog is also probably nice,but within a sea of sameness.
Socrates Rosenfeld (26:58):
Yeah.
AnnaRae Grabstein (26:58):
Well, so, outside of the technology, of
the cannabis technology space, Iknow that you guys are doing
some, some stuff with AI, andyou know AI it has been an
emerging technology for the pastcouple of years.
I think that all of us arestarting to use it in different
ways, even just in the way thatwe produce this podcast.
(27:18):
I mean, I I probably have like10 AI touch points before I
publish this at the end of todayand um, it's just been so
incredibly useful and I haven'tquite seen it hit the cannabis
technology space in a forwardway yet, and I'm sure you guys
are thinking about this, workingon it.
(27:39):
What is the emergingtechnologies that you are most
excited about and that we'regoing to be seeing within your
development?
Socrates Rosenfeld (27:46):
Yeah.
So I think really good AIshould be invisible.
Really good technology shouldbe invisible like great design,
right, like you shouldn't knowthat you are, that there's AI
like happening when you fire upyour Netflix and they're
recommending shows to youYouTube, amazon, when you are.
(28:11):
My favorite is Spotify.
I draw the example a lot that II'm gonna repeat myself, but
this is what I do.
I'm sorry, nra.
So if anybody's like, oh,sock's gonna talk about music
again, here we go I love music,so all day long let's do it cool
, all right, cool, you lovemusic, right, everybody loves
music.
music's like cannabis, deep down, everybody loves it.
(28:32):
Yeah, you just, if you don'tlike it, you just haven't found
the right song or the rightartist and I say, yeah, don't I
also love Spotify.
AnnaRae Grabstein (28:40):
I've been like a paid Spotify user since
the day that I could be a paidand why do we love Spotify?
Socrates Rosenfeld (28:45):
right, it's a great, great way to curate and
discover new music, new artists.
It's almost like man, it's myown personal DJ.
So if you listen to a song andI listen to a song the exact
same song at the exact same timeyou might be crying and I could
be feeling, wow, so happy.
(29:07):
My wife loves music that makesme sad and she's like what are
you talking about?
This makes me so happy.
And then I'll listen to musicthat makes me really happy and
she's like what are you talkingabout?
This makes me so happy.
And then I'll listen to musicthat makes me really happy and
she's like this really kind ofbums me out.
So music is personal, right,it's very, very personal.
Cannabis is also extremelypersonal.
(29:29):
If you try a strain and I triedthe and you, we take a puff
from the exact same joint you'regoing to feel slightly
different, majorly different,than I am right, we're not going
to feel the exact same way,based on our endocannabinoid
system, et cetera.
How we're feeling that day.
What happened to us?
(29:50):
That what we eat this morning,all this stuff affects that this
morning, all this stuff affectsthat.
Well, if Spotify can get itright in terms of putting new
music in front of you that youhad never otherwise thought that
you would love.
Why can't we do that with theplant?
And so we've worked very hardfor the past.
(30:10):
You know, we built this catalogabout 10 years ago.
We've had a whole machinelearning team here at Jane
in-house for a few years now,and we've been working on
various algorithms.
One I'll talk about is whatwe've coined as MyHi.
You know, myhi this is myrelationship, my own personal
(30:31):
relationship with the plant, andso how does that manifest?
When you go on a menu, yourfavorite store's menu, you're in
Petaluma.
I'm sure there are great storesin Petaluma.
AnnaRae Grabstein (30:43):
No stores in Petaluma but in Sonoma County.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Socrates Rosenfeld (30:46):
Petaluma In Sonoma County.
If you go visit that store'swebsite and it's being powered
by Jane the products that yousee will be different than the
products I see.
It'll just be merchandiseddifferently, right?
Imagine going into a grocerystore.
I'm the worst at grocery storesbecause I'm going to out myself
(31:07):
.
I don't really go to thegrocery store too often.
When I'm going there, though, Ihave to like go up and down the
aisles and find what I need.
Imagine if they were like oh,socks just walked through the
door.
He loves these brands.
Here it is, just take it fromthe shelf and you're good.
Oh, and if you took this fromthe shelf, here's some new
things that you might like.
AnnaRae Grabstein (31:27):
Right, we can do.
How do you determine whensomebody walks in that store?
What data are you pulling aboutthe individual people?
Here's the cool part, right?
Is it just cannabis, pastpurchases, or is it like, oh, I
was on the Sephora website or Iwas on the Whole Foods website
and so now you can take thatand-.
I love the way you think we'renot there yet.
Socrates Rosenfeld (31:48):
It's within the cannabis ecosystem.
Okay, we're not there.
Like, hey, follow in Anna Rae,because that's kind of creepy,
that, oh, she went to Sephoraand spent this credit card.
But the cool part aboutcannabis and we do this online
and now we're integrating thisinto the in-store environment
through our self-service kioskand our point of sale the
coolest well, not the coolestpart about cannabis the coolest
part about cannabis is cannabis.
(32:09):
An interesting little variable,though, in the shopping
experience is that you have toshow your ID when you walk in
the store.
So I go to a local store andI've been there 50 times and
they treat me like I'm a newcustomer.
Every time this is made up, thelocal store knows because I
shop way too much.
But right, that's not great.
Like I've been there 50 times,you should know my name.
(32:31):
You should know the last time Icame here, you should know my
preferences, what I like, what Ididn't like.
That would be pretty cool if wecould empower the bud tenders.
The staff at that brick andmortar location say hey, Anna
Rae, welcome back.
Hey, we have these productsready for you.
We've got deals on yourfavorite brands.
Hey, here's another productthat we think you might like,
(32:53):
because we know you love mercinein an edible format to help you
cool out and go to sleep.
Here are some other new brandsthat are coming out.
Would you like to take a look?
AnnaRae Grabstein (33:04):
so I love this.
I think it's so important, and Irealize it because if I, I'm a
pretty disciplined person and soif I sit down to watch netflix
at the end of the day, I will gointo it with a like okay, anna
Rae, you're allowed to have 60minutes of screen time, the same
way I might talk to myseven-year-old and then you need
to sleep because sleep matters.
(33:25):
But at the end of that 60minute show, netflix already
just started this next show thatthey know that I want to watch
and all of a sudden I amwatching another hour of Netflix
because Netflix knows me sowell that they had an idea of
what I might like to watch.
But one of the things that Ithink is unique about cannabis
(33:47):
is that I mean, I'll out myself.
I would say that I am prettypolyamorous with my cannabis
preferences and that like it'snot like.
Oh, I bought a gummy withMersene one time and now, even
though I loved it, I only wantgummies with Mersene.
It's like I want to keep tryingdifferent things all the time
and some people are different.
(34:07):
I was talking to someone when Iwas at the event this week who
was saying that they have thisone strain that they love to go
back to time and time again, and90% of their cannabis
consumption is this one strain.
I'm like on the completeopposite.
I want to just try new stuffall the time.
So so when you're trying totrain a model to help the bud
tender when I walk in the storeor when that other person walks
(34:31):
in the store, how do you createthat technology?
What is going on?
Socrates Rosenfeld (34:38):
We have a saying I was a pilot, so I was
not smart, because the peoplethat were really smart took care
of the engines.
And I'd ask, I'd be like to thecrew chief, I'd be like, hey,
crew chief, how does this work?
And they'd tell me PFM.
And it took me a while tounderstand what PFM stood for.
(34:59):
The P is pure, the M is magic,and I'll leave it to your
imagination what the F standsfor.
So that's how we say, in themachine learning world, there
are millions, millions of datapoints that much smarter people
are trying to figure out at thecompany.
(35:19):
What I can say, though, is that, coming back to this music
analogy, if you just love hiphop and that's what you like to
listen to, and you're justlistening to hip hop all day
long Spotify is going to allowyou to go deeper and deeper into
hip hop.
Right, they're not going toshow you classical music, but if
you're using your word,polyamorous to music, musical
(35:41):
tastes, well, spotify is goingto treat you a little
differently.
We do the exact same thing.
So, like I'm not a big extractguy I don't, I don't smoke a lot
of hash or diamonds or resin,so those kinds of products are
further down in the menu, notharder for me to find, but less
(36:01):
prioritized.
I love flour, I like edibles, sothose are prioritized up more,
and it's not just hey, buy thisagain, buy this again, buy this
again.
It's would you like to buy thisagain?
And hey, would you like to buythis again?
And hey, would you like toexplore.
So it's um, it's reallypersonal to the customer in
terms of how we do that.
(36:23):
This is why I uh, I don't getnear any of those algorithms,
because there are a lot more,much more intelligent people on
that trying to try to figurethat out and the data is coming
back to you know, we do a prettypretty good job.
AnnaRae Grabstein (36:35):
Yeah, it's the magic.
I hear you Well, you'rebringing up the other people and
I, ben, and I, always like tothink about leadership and
scaling and growing companies,and you've been at this for a
while.
This is not a company that hasbeen around for 12 or 24 months.
You're close to a decade rightBuilding this, and my
(36:56):
understanding from when wetalked before is that you have a
fully remote team of 175 people.
Is that right?
Socrates Rosenfeld (37:01):
Yeah, that's right yeah.
AnnaRae Grabstein (37:03):
And so I would just I'd love to dive into
a little bit of the humanelement of building this thing.
You've talked about the purposeand the mission that's really
driving the creation and thegrowth and the vision behind the
company, but what has it beenlike leading a fully remote team
of 175 people While in thisfast moving industry?
(37:23):
How do you all keep up?
What's the magic?
Socrates Rosenfeld (37:26):
What's the magic?
I've led in various capacities.
I've been really lucky andfortunate to be in positions of
leadership since I was early 20s, leading platoons in Korea, the
company in Iraq.
This has been the mostfulfilling and challenging
(37:50):
leadership experience of my life, of my life.
Challenging in the sense thatit is remote and that you can't
see people, you can't touch them, you can't.
It's hard to feel over Zoom.
You know we do a pretty goodjob of it, but there's something
still like in part, it's likewatching live music, you know,
like there's something about itFulfilling in the sense, though,
(38:12):
that I feel like we've builtsuch a wonderful culture and
created a really safe space forpeople to be.
And so why is this working sowell?
I think number one.
You know if I'm a bad cook,I'll be the first one to admit
(38:34):
it, but if you gave me reallygood ingredients, I can make you
a decent sandwich and I'm notsaying a cook makes sandwiches,
but like that's, that's my level, right.
But if you give me the bestchef in the world and you give
them bad ingredients, I think mysandwich will taste better
because it has better tomatoes,you know, cheese, better bread,
(38:54):
et cetera.
In creating a recipe for acompany the ingredients are the
most important thing, and theingredients are the people.
And we take hiring.
It is the number one.
Most important thing that we dois attract, grow and retain
talent, and we don't need thebest people, we need the right
(39:17):
people.
We need people who are teamoriented, people who are willing
to operate in times ofuncertainty, people who can take
ownership when ownership needsto be taken, people who over
communicate, people whounderstand that this isn't about
just dollars and cents andwinning and beating, but that
there's an underlying mission toprovide access to a plant that
(39:39):
helps people, that what we dowill set forth a standard that
will be followed for decades tocome in this industry, not just
in the US but for the world.
And we've done that.
So that's that's kind of numberone.
An additional piece is leaders.
I see too many out here inSilicon Valley.
(40:00):
I say we're adjacent to SiliconValley.
We're not really in SiliconValley here in Santa Cruz.
You know this.
It's a very different culture,but this is like hero worship of
the guy, the girl, the onethat's going to take us to the
promised land.
Make all the decisions.
Elon Musk, oh, steve Jobs.
Invented the iPhone.
Oh my God, mark Zuckerberg,you're a genius with meta.
(40:22):
That's BS.
This is teams, and can youdelegate empower?
Take care of your team and theywill take care of the company.
I have some ideas.
I don't have the best ideas allthe time.
In fact, I got a lot of badideas most of the time.
But if you can create a spacewhere people can feel heard and
(40:45):
seen, they feel safe makingmistakes, what are you going to
get?
You're going to getunbelievable ideas dispersed
across the organization and notconsolidated to one.
That's why you got a lot ofCEOs saying you got to come back
to the office.
I got to watch exactly whatyou're doing.
Oh, I don't trust you.
Oh, we can't communicate.
Well, that's a sign of poorleadership here in a distributed
(41:08):
workforce.
At Jane, we have good leaders,good ingredients in the
employees and the right culturethat you can change the world
the employees and the rightculture that you can change the
world.
AnnaRae Grabstein (41:19):
So the people , the retention of talent,
fostering of leadership.
But in terms of an operatingsystem or how you create, I like
to talk about like the rhythmof business, where people can
figure out like the vessel forhow to foster leadership and how
to show up and what theexpectations are.
There's a lot of differentframeworks out there, especially
within technology.
(41:40):
There's lots of different waysthat people build and manage
products.
Do you subscribe to a certainsystem or have you created an
operating system, either foryourself or that you mentor and
train others on to help themlearn how to be leaders?
Socrates Rosenfeld (41:58):
We have a program called we say the
culture is our soil.
At, jane, if you're intogardening, if the soil is rich,
everything beautiful will growfrom it.
If the soil is toxic, you canget the best seeds in the world,
but they won't grow.
Maybe you've been part of thoseorganizations before anyway,
(42:19):
where you're like man, it'sreally toxic here and nothing's
growing except for more toxicity.
We, we, we do not subscribe tothat.
We, if we find a, a toxicperson which is extremely rare I
don be honest with you, Ihaven't found one yet at chain,
you know, we say, hey, this isprobably not a fit for you, you
(42:39):
got to go.
But in terms of, we don'tsubscribe to any like, I don't
know traditional, we do this andthis is what we do and it's,
you know this, scrum or agile,it's just leadership, it's
communication, often overcommunicating.
We have touch points everysingle day, from the CEO all the
(43:05):
way down to the org.
You are checking in with yourteam to start your day every day
.
AnnaRae Grabstein (43:10):
That sounds like an operating system.
That sounds like a clearexpectation.
Beautiful, okay, this is cool.
Socrates Rosenfeld (43:16):
I didn't know.
We had an operating system.
We have weekly cadences, wehave dashboards, we have reports
.
Every Friday, every Friday, theentire company comes together
for an hour and we give anupdate on the business, wins,
learnings.
And here's the most beautifulone, and I hope someone steals
(43:36):
this one day One employee, atthe end of every closeout, will
share what they are grateful for.
Take five, 10, 15 minutes andthe beautiful thing is you get
to learn about your teammate ina capacity that's not
transactional, and what we willstart to realize is, wherever
you're situated in the worldnorth, south, east, west, city,
(43:59):
rural, man, woman, old, young,black, white we're all grateful
for the same things and that'swhat ties us together.
And sometimes, most of the time, people say they're grateful
for Jane.
Some employees are like no, I'mnot saying that, that didn't
make my list, which iscompletely okay, but we realize
there's something there thatties us together.
(44:19):
Great culture creates resilientcompanies, and resilient
companies can work in remoteenvironments.
Poor culture doesn't createresilient companies.
And then what do you have to do?
You have to micromanage, youhave to consolidate, you have to
control and as someone who'sbeen part of those organizations
, you know the army is kind ofyou.
(44:41):
Could I have examples on bothboth worlds?
I wanted to create Jane, wherethis was a place where we could
treat you like an adult, like amature adult, and that you want
to be here, not have to be here,and I think that's paid off for
us.
AnnaRae Grabstein (44:56):
Yeah, I will absolutely say that you have an
operating system as someone thatworks with lots of companies.
It might be not a framework ofsomeone else's, but when I said
rhythm of business earlier andwe've talked about music and
clearly you're a music fan Ithink that creating a rhythm of
business is like.
That is the operating system,and it sounds like people on
(45:16):
your team have some things thatthey can depend on in terms of
what the structure looks likeand that, I believe, is one of
those pathways to creating thatsafe vessel for people to
explore and to make mistakes andto reinforce cultures that,
when they can depend on the waytheir leaders are going to show
up, they can depend on theexpectations of how they're
(45:37):
expected to show up.
And absolutely what you saidabout checking in on what's
going on in the business.
To be able to get that crosspollination of understanding
whether someone is in marketingor in product development, to be
getting insights into thingsthat are happening across the
ecosystem of the business, tohave better context and
(45:57):
understanding of the way thattheir work relates to other
pieces of work, can be reallyempowering Wow.
Socrates Rosenfeld (46:04):
That's cool, yeah, that you said that much
better than I did, and now I cansay, yeah, we do have an
operating system here at Jane,so thank you.
AnnaRae Grabstein (46:10):
You do.
Yeah, and it's one of thosethings I think is the
undercurrent of companies beingable to scale successfully, and
certainly in the context ofcannabis, where everybody has
been chasing profitability nowfor the past 24 months or so and
really focusing on being ableto create cash flow.
(46:31):
I will often look at acompany's financials and they're
asking questions about how dowe get there?
What are the moves that we needto make?
I think the clarity on missionacross the board and on what the
objectives are to align aroundthe biggest ones as a company
(46:52):
depends on the team, and withoutthat you're nowhere.
So, really cool.
Couldn't agree with you moreAwesome.
Well, we're getting close to thehour.
There's a few things that Ididn't get to talk with you
about today.
I think that before we move tolast call, I would love to get
your take on how much you aregetting involved in policy there
(47:13):
.
You know we're on the back ofthis really complicated,
divisive election that justhappened.
We don't really know what thisnew administration is going to
be doing with cannabis, but I'mcurious how you think of policy
and navigating regulations andlaws and planning for the future
for Jane.
Socrates Rosenfeld (47:32):
You know this is our third or fourth.
Actually.
When we started, obama waspresident, then we went through
a Trump administration, thenBiden, now back to Trump.
It's kind of our fourth run.
Now, can I?
I don't want to sound this isnot kind of blowing off the
question, but it does matter.
It definitely does matter.
(47:54):
It matters more broadly thancannabis, in my opinion, but for
us it's not.
If it's how we're going to dothis, it's not.
Oh, if Matt Gaetz does this orit's just like cool, whatever
comes to us, we're not going tostop.
We are committed to building, toplaying our part it's not just
(48:15):
jane to playing our part to makesure that this plant is given
the legitimacy, the respect thatit deserves.
It's been helping people formillions well, I shouldn't say
millions of years, tens ofthousands of years, maybe
millions, I don't know.
Uh, long time, yeah, long time.
And for us to get to this pointwhen we started was colorado,
(48:40):
was legal colorado, oregon, thatwas it.
And now, look, we have, we'rein 39 states.
Canada's legalized, europe'sgoing.
We were when.
Who was the attorney generalwhen?
Trump in 2016?
Jeff, thank you.
The dude from Alabama.
Oh my God, we were so scared.
(49:01):
Oh, what's going to happen?
Oh hey, mission continues.
We'll go figure this out,because we're not here to say,
oh, let's just get tolegalization and that's our exit
.
There is no exit for us.
We're building this thing tolast for as long as it could
possibly last.
We're not going to kind of swayand get so sensitive to kind of
(49:25):
who's sitting in the seat.
Do we pay attention to it?
Absolutely, is that important?
Yes, but it's not the onlything.
And for us, the way we navigateit is we have an end state in
mind or no end state in mind.
It's actually kind of let's go,continue to do everything we
can to expand the access to thisplant and take care of
businesses along the way, andthe rest will take care of
(49:47):
itself.
And I know that sounds prettytrite, but it's the truth and
this is how we we navigate.
You know it's disappointing inflorida, man, it's one of the I
never understand us politicswhen you can get a majority vote
and still won't pass yeah right, we know it's not.
Oh god, florida's never going tolegalize.
It's like okay, it's when peoplearen't going to stop consuming
(50:08):
cannabis in florida, and we knowthat it's when yeah alabama,
it's when, south carolina it'swhen and we're in terms of
profitability and getting there.
We are committed to being herefor the long term so that we can
.
I would love to to ring thebell and be like man.
A 50th state, now legalized DC,is ready to go like federal
(50:29):
legalization is there.
We want to be around for that,and whether that's in a Trump
administration or futureadministrations, the story is
yet to be written and we're herefor it.
AnnaRae Grabstein (50:40):
I love it.
Well, that brings us to the endof the hour and it is our last
call.
So, socrates, this is yourchance to leave a lasting
impression on our listeners.
Any advice, call to action, amessage for those shaping the
future in cannabis.
What is your last call?
Socrates Rosenfeld (50:57):
In a very divided country right now.
They I don't know who they is,but they've succeeded in
dividing us between red and blue, et cetera, et cetera, et
cetera.
Cannabis is truly one of thefew things that unites us.
Republicans smoke, democratssmoke, city people smoke, rural
(51:22):
people smoke.
So let's ensure that we stayunited.
I was so fortunate to enter thisindustry during the medical
days.
Where were there some folks whoare just exploiting you know
this like gray area?
Of course, sure, and there wasa lot of folks here for the
(51:46):
mission to to really say, yeah,man, this, this plan helped me,
so I'm here committing my lifeto help this plan.
I was one of those people.
I got to meet some reallyextremely impressive pioneers
that we don't know their names,right val corral, dennis perrone
, steve d'angelo, like debbiegolds, like folks that really
(52:07):
were on the forefront of this.
Let's not forget what we'refighting for.
It's not to make VCs a bunch ofmoney only.
It's not to IPO.
It's not to win or beat thecompetitor man.
Let's not forget why we'redoing this.
Let's not forget the veteranswho need this plant.
(52:28):
Let's not forget the people whoare getting off of opioids
because of this plant Thousands,millions of examples.
So let's remember that cannabistruly is a healing of a nation.
Let's not forget the why and ifwe can do that, this is how
we're going to build an industrythat lasts, because if we start
dividing, we start trying tofight all the time, and that's
(52:51):
the purpose of our business.
We're not going to make anyprogress.
So let's continue to rememberour why, share that with the
world, get inspired by others,but ultimately play our music
and I have faith that the restwill take care of itself.
You know, we're still standinghere, 10 years, a few different
presidents, and I don't thinkthat's going to change moving
(53:12):
forward.
AnnaRae Grabstein (53:14):
Nice.
Well, thank you so much forbeing here.
Really appreciate you sharingand it's been a great
conversation.
So what'd you think, folks?
Did you learn something as wewrap?
Remember that the dialogue doesnot have to stop here.
We invite you to continue theseconversations with us.
Engage with us online.
Let us know what kind ofconversations you want to have.
(53:35):
If you liked this episode,share it with your friends,
follow us on LinkedIn and othersocial platforms, and remember
to stay curious, to stayinformed and, most importantly,
to keep your spirits high.
Until the next time, have agood one.
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.