Interview with Pot Sales Software Developer

My wife and I went to an art studio open house yesterday in which someone or someone and friends smoked some pot. (For the record, neither my wife nor I indulged.) We thought the situation was hilarious (no contact high jokes, please). Of course, marijuana possession for recreational purposes is illegal in New Jersey, where we live and where the studio event took place. No one pulled an Eliot Ness and burst into the room demanding hands up and evidence down.

Ben Curren
(image: mercurynews.com)

I didn't think too much about the episode until today, when I read a siliconvalley.com interview with Ben Curren. The California entrepreneur has developed a pot-sales software program called Green Bits. The product's value proposition centers on the notion that minimally trained customer service representatives are unwise to the legal side of pot sales. Ah, what a difference an algorithm makes! What might have been a legal minefield becomes a sexy, profitable business.

Curren comes across in the rather brief siliconvalley.com Q&A as a sympathetic figure. His childhood years, with frequent change of venue and schools, left him skilled at improvisation and fearless regarding chaos. His fix-it, can-do character, along with a passion for computer programming, made him a natural fit for Silicon Valley enterprises. No Harvard, no MIT, no Stanford. Just good old-fashioned brains, determination, and ambition. Just don't ask me if he gets high.

Washington State Swamped With Pot Growing License Applications

Image: justice.gov

While Wall Street analysts and ambitious politicians grasp at nearly any job creation straw, there's one industry that can't keep up with demand. Pot growing entrepreneurs have inundated Washington State with applications to grow weed. The Pacific Northwest state recently legalized the regulated cultivation and sale of pot. According to an article in today's Seattle Times, Washington's Liquor Control Board (LCB) had initially assumed a cap of two million square feet would be sufficient for the state's marijuana planters. The LCB misjudged demand by approximately thirty-three million square feet. Oops.

In fairness, the Seattle Times story noted that the Obama Administration influenced Washington State's planning. Essentially, the Feds didn't want extensive fields of pot plants, as DC bureaucrats didn't want Washington State to export its product to adjacent states where weed remains illegal.