# Rewind: Inside Stiiizy, The World’s Best-Selling Weed Brand

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/forbes-topline-6026943/rewind-inside-stiiizy-the-world-s-best-selling-weed-brand
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/forbes-topline-6026943/rewind-inside-stiiizy-the-world-s-best-selling-weed-brand.md
Podcast: [Forbes Topline](https://stenobird.com/podcast/forbes-topline-6026943)
Published: 2026-04-20T04:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/FSML6889134733.mp3
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/FSML6889134733.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/forbes-topline-6026943/episodes/rewind-inside-stiiizy-the-world-s-best-selling-weed-brand
Duration seconds: 366

## Resource

James Kim’s Los Angeles-based cannabis company grew from a scrappy startup in 2017 to a legal unicorn worth $1.5 billion. Allegations of black-market activity and lawsuits be damned—Stiiizy aims to be the Nike of cannabis. Inside a warehouse in Downtown Los Angeles, next to a strip club, James Kim, the CEO and cofounder of the California-based cannabis brand Stiiizy opens the door to one of his grow rooms, revealing 972 pot plants, thriving three-foot-tall beauties two weeks from harvest. “This room is all money,” says Kim, who is 37 and has tattoos covering his arms, including a portrait of Ben Franklin and a rose made from a $100 bill. These days, Stiiizy is bringing in plenty of Benjamins. The company—which was founded in 2017 and grows cannabis, manufacturers vapes, pre-rolls, gummies and flower—has nearly 50 branded dispensaries across California and generates more than $800 million a year in revenue. Stiiizy, which is also California’s biggest cannabis retailer, is the best-selling weed brand in the country, according to sales data firm Headset. A vertically integrated powerhouse that now operates in seven states, one out of every eight cannabis products sold in the United States is a Stiiizy product. The company, which Forbes estimates to be valued at $1.5 billion, is privately held, secretive and mysterious—out of four original co-founders, only Kim would agree to speak, and he would not confirm the names of his partners. Founded in the gray market days before California legalized recreational marijuana, Stiiizy has also been dogged by lawsuits, rumors of illicit activity (all of which the company denies) and scandals, but none of that has changed the fact that in the $32 billion regulated cannabis industry, Stiiizy is the brand to beat. “We’re the number-one b…

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