Behold the weed industrial complex in its terrifying glory: an endless maze of tropical nurseries filled with hundreds of cannabis plants, science labs where chemists extract terpenes from glass beakers to make vape juice, and glass jars of nugs whizz down conveyor belts. Workers in lab coats and hair nets scuttle around hallways lit in eerie hues of burnt orange or blue; some are even wearing gas masks, adding to the sterile, post-apocalyptic vibe. Under the skunky floral perfume, the air smells like money.

Jay-Z’s weed factory is a hulking 100,000-square-foot facility on a busy intersection in San Jose, California, so mammoth it dwarfs even the Walmart down the street. A steady procession of customers shuffles patiently in line at the front-room dispensary, oblivious to the whirring machinations behind closed doors. Only with an employee access card do those doors swing open to the inner labyrinth, where 11,000 pounds of cannabis are produced each year.

The factory technically belongs to The Parent Company (TPCO), a publicly traded company —Wall Street’s current fashionable fund-raising vehicle—created with the intention of “rolling up” the California cannabis market, which Jay-Z and Roc Nation joined last year. TPCO consolidates the California cannabis giant Caliva—which processed 1.5 million legal weed transactions in California in 2020—with 17 other weed brands, including Carlos Santana’s Mirayo and Bob Marley’s Marley Natural. TPCO is also vertically integrated, which means it controls the means of production from start to finish—from the plant grow rooms to the package manufacturing to the final sales at the dispensary. The location is strategic, perched in the heart of Silicon Valley with the Emerald Triangle, epicenter of America’s cannabis farmlands, a few hours drive north.

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