Talking Points: Branding Bud author David Paleschuck

Before he joined the cannabis industry, David Paleschuck put together a career that seemed destined for it. A skateboarder with an MBA, he learned about retail in stints at MasterCard and American Express. Then Pepsi hired him to better understand the surfers and skateboarders who are emblematic of its Mountain Dew brand.

After moving to Seattle, he worked in marketing for Microsoft. But when he saw friends leaving the tech world for cannabis, he joined Dope Magazine with the goal of turning them "from bros to pros." He focused on putting folks like Whoopi Goldberg and Bernie . . .