Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Tuesday, April 22nd.

Today on Forbes, Inside Steasy, the world's best-selling weed brand.

Inside a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, next to a strip club, James Kim, the CEO and

co-founder of the California-based cannabis brand Steasy, opens the door to one of his grow rooms, revealing 972 pot plants, thriving three-foot-tall beauties two weeks from harvest.

Kim, who is 37 years old and has tattoos covering his arms, including a portrait of Ben Franklin and a rose

made from a $100 bill, says, quote, this room is all money. These days, Steezy is bringing in

plenty of Benjamins, a lot of money. The company, which was founded in 2017, and grows cannabis, manufactures vapes, pre-rolls,

gummies, and flour, has nearly 50 branded dispensaries across California and generates more than

$800 million a year in revenue.

Steezy, 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 Steezy 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, Steezy 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, Steezy is the brand to beat.

A floor below the grow room, Kim walks through his production facility, where dozens of employees in

blue hairnets and face masks brush mini blunts with a brown liquid and roll them into a half

pound of keef and put them into trays.

In another room, a woman uses a machine to fill 100 Steezy vape pens at a time.

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