AACE INTERIVEW: Raymond Chang. Faith, Family and Fortitude.
Raymond Chang
Forging the path forward for others
Our faith and beliefs are the sails to our ships, our moral codes the anchor, and as in life we navigate through choppy and calm waters, however, we do this not as solo mariners but as a community that comes together to bring stability and generational wealth back to those diverse communities.
Raymond Chang is the CEO of Agrify, whose mission is to transform cannabis through innovation and by offering vertically integrated solutions in the hemp and cannabis industries. Raymond is an outlier in the cannabis industry, by the fact he is guided by his faith and by his moral code and speaks publicly about it, normally we do not delve into our beliefs in the cannabis industry other than call for “lower taxes” and “legalization” as our mantras. As a community and now industry, our beliefs carry us through, they are our foundations and pillars, whatever those beliefs are, we respect all because the fabric of the cannabis community is built on faith, faith to have support, to be able to trade legally, faith in having an even playing ground for all, faith in social equity, whatever faith we hold, we all believe in plant medicine and the benefits of what nature offers us over chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
We are honored today to have Raymond on AACE, and we like him, and have faith in our community and in our plant medicines. - Ophelia Chong
Entrepreneurship is in your DNA. I’ve spoken with entrepreneurs who began early in their junior high school lives, some have sold fireworks or have consolidated their entire neighborhood’s newspaper routes under their purview for a commission. What was your “first” business?
In 1996, the only way to get on the internet was through the slow process of dial-up. It was incredibly frustrating, so I asked myself a question: a cable line is thicker than the telephone line, so why can’t we use it to transmit data for a faster process? That’s when I discovered something called broadband technology. I quit school a few months later, went out to Silicon Valley to intern for a broadband company, and learned everything I could. Six months later, I founded GigaMedia, the first broadband telecom company in Asia. In 1999, we received a $35mm investment from Microsoft, and in 2000, we went public on Nasdaq and raised $280mm, one of the largest IPOs for an internet company at the time.
The use of cannabis has been in China's plant medicine lexicon for over 4,000 years, yet China agreed to join the Convention on Psychotropic Substances 1971 and the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances 1988. With those policies, we have set two generations on the path to denying our plant medicine use of cannabis. How do you educate about cannabis to the AAPI community here? (i.e. Programs, mentorships, outreach)
One of the most important initiatives here is to have continuous education for the AAPI community, and this especially pertains to the medicinal benefits of cannabis. At Agrify, we are thought leaders in this industry, and we do our best to share interesting and important information about a wide variety of topics with people who come from all different backgrounds. Within the AAPI community, the use of herbal medicines is a multi-century practice, so I think there is already an understanding of the impact that plants can have on our health and overall well-being.
In five years, do you see cannabis segmenting into stores that only sell edibles and beverages, and others selling only combustibles? Will there be a “supermarket” for edibles that can feature the growing segment of edibles, tinctures, topicals, beverages, and novelty edibles?
The bifurcation of the retail cannabis market into combustible and non-combustible forms is unlikely. Flower continues to be people’s preference, and there is a ton of data to back this up. Other forms of cannabis, including vape cartridges, edibles, extracts, beverages, tinctures, and topicals, have a long way to go before toppling flower. Many entrepreneurs and investors rushed to support the niche sector of infused beverages, but consumer adoption has been lackluster to date.
What I believe will define retail distribution channels is state regulation and the need for traceability. Most states require “seed to sale” tracking on all cannabis products, so any retail separation of combustible and non-combustible forms of cannabis will have to address this required supply chain transparency. Additionally, with almost 12,000 dispensaries across the country, disparate state regulations, and underfunded and understaffed authorities, I doubt we would move to add more complexity and cost to the process. Overseeing one set of stores that deal with both the seed to flower and seed to product traceability is naturally simpler than overseeing disparate stores with added regulation and oversight issues.
When I entered the cannabis community in 2015, I saw very few that “looked” like me. As a community, we are not prominent in the cultural cannabis history, however we are forging a path into cannabis with AAPIs creating products and ancillary businesses to support the industry. When you stepped into the cannabis industry, was it a challenge to be seen as an outsider?
It certainly wasn’t easy stepping into the cannabis industry. However, given that Agrify came into the sector from the technology side, and the AAPI community has had quite a bit of success with technology entrepreneurship, that did make my entrance a little easier.
Asians are an agrarian society, tied to the earth by our culture. Thailand in its legalization of cannabis is giving out one million cannabis plants to citizens. I see this as a way to educate and to dispel the fear of the plant which decades of propaganda and misinformation has created. How do you speak about cannabis to your family and how did they react?
My family initially saw the medicinal benefits of cannabis through my mother-in-law, who was a cancer patient. This was a real personal encounter, which made the conversation much easier. They saw the benefit, but the impact of cannabis on my mother-in-law was definitely not consistent, which made me realize the importance of being able to produce high-quality and consistent products that are safe and will produce expected results – where the doctor knows how much to prescribe for any use case and need.
In 2017, I was called by a preeminent dispensary in the Castro area of San Francisco. They were applying to open up a new retail shop in the Sunset District, a heavily Asian dominated area. I was tasked with outreach to the parties opposing the store, and in my research, it was one Christian Chinese group that was organized with laminated talking points and posters. As outreach, we presented education and a space for an open conversation. What we found was singular messaging by each opponent, and scripted. As a Christian, how do you educate others about cannabis?
I believe everything created by God is good.
The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
What advice would you give to a young AAPI entrepreneur on how to navigate the cannabis industry? ( i.e. The landscape is different and the “waters” run fast, so one must be able to pivot on a dime)
Figure out what you are good at and stick to your niche. Also, be smart about how to assemble the best team possible.
What legacy do you want to leave in cannabis for fellow AAPIs?
I would like to be viewed as an early pioneer in the cannabis industry who helped pave the way for others by breaking down barriers and creating an iconic business that positively impacted thousands of lives – someone for people to point to as an example of a Christian, well-educated, successful AAPI entrepreneur who persevered and achieved greatness in a dynamic field.
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