$2 billion company betting big on marijuana, shows collision of PayPal, Facebook and marijuana

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Editor's Note: Marijuana meets mainstream investing. This announcement from CBS News shows the collision of major brands and names, including PayPal, Facebook, Spotify and Bob Marley. As Cannabis Business Times had noted in a Dec. 17 article about Founders Fund's interest in Privateer Holdings (which late last year partnered with the Bob Marley family on the Marley Natural global cannabis brand), one of the executives behind Founders Fund is Peter Thiel. Thiel is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal, where he also served as CEO. Founders Fund's investment portfolio, as CBS News notes, includes Facebook and Spotify. Put on your seat belts. This is going to be a wild ride. 


Until now, it's been a few rich individuals who secretly funded burgeoning pot companies, but for the first time, a major investment firm is going to put multimillion dollars behind marijuana.

It's a partnership between two investors and the first institutional investments in pot, reports CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason.

Geoff Lewis's firm, Founders Fund, a $2 billion company, made its name investing early in new companies like Facebook, Spotify and SpaceX. But now it's betting on pot.

"We discuss all our investments for a long time. ...So particularly in this case, we did an extra, extra deep dive on the business," Lewis said.

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