This was no partnership. This was no empire being built. It was a house of cards slapped together by a bunch of greedy egos completely out of their range of experience and aptitude.

Beyond the narrative about healthy cannabinoids and medicine and whatever stories these guys were trying to sell everybody on, at the end of the day the only thing these muldoons were concerned about was how much money they could milk out of this cash cow.

It appeared Cornelius didn’t tell this lunatic anything about me – my qualifications, my background, my experience, nothing.

This opportunity in Oregon might accelerate some things a bit, I thought. Plus I’d get mountains and the ocean. Chels and the kids love the ocean, too.

We were best-friends, but perhaps the worst kind. Instead of bringing out the best in each other, we brought out the beast in each other.

“It’s happening all over the country,” Cornelius said. “And nobody knows what they’re doing yet, but everyone is making tons of money. The industry can’t even catch up to the demand right now, I mean we can’t grow this stuff fast enough.”

“It’s like the Wild West, Nate. It’s why I have this,” Cornelius reached around a filing cabinet and brandished what looked like an old Winchester rifle from 1866.

Cornelius looked at me with his eyeballs over his sunglasses. “I need to tell you about Dick.”

Trato Diablo Farms – worth over fifteen million dollars – went bankrupt eighteen months after it peaked in 2018. I was there to watch it crash and burn.