Nearly seven years after Bruce Linton last occupied the CEO’s chair at what was once the world’s largest cannabis producer, he’s still wearing the company colours – for a good cause. Fresh off a breakfast fundraiser for the Queensway Carleton Hospital, the co-founder and former chief executive of Canopy Growth Corp. shows up for an […]
Nearly seven years after Bruce Linton last occupied the CEO’s chair at what was once the world’s largest cannabis producer, he’s still wearing the company colours – for a good cause.
Fresh off a breakfast fundraiser for the Queensway Carleton Hospital, the co-founder and former chief executive of Canopy Growth Corp. shows up for an interview with an OBJ reporter in casual garb. He’s wearing a pullover, with the zipper open just enough to reveal the word “Tweed” – the name of Canopy’s signature brand – in gold lettering on the T-shirt underneath.
Linton, who was named CEO of the Year in 2018 by OBJ and the Ottawa Board of Trade for his work at Canopy Growth, explains that the organizers of the charity event wanted everyone in attendance to feature at least a bit of gold in their wardrobe.
“This was as close to gold as anything I own,” he says with a chuckle.
Linton now grows his blondish hair longer than he did during his days at Canopy Growth, but his boyish enthusiasm remains. At 59, he could easily pass for someone a decade younger.
“Life is good,” he says while sipping a cortado at a Centretown coffee shop. “My big advice to most people when they say, ‘What career advice can you give me?’ is I say, ‘Try to make enough money before you’re too old so you can actually go and do shit.’”
In Linton’s case, that means seeing the world. Nowadays, the man who once stood at the pinnacle of the Canadian cannabis industry is more interested in climbing actual mountains – such as last year when he hiked the Annapurna Circuit, a 160-plus-kilometre trek through central Nepal that includes peaks of more than 5,000 metres. Linton took that adventure with his nephew.
Since stepping away from the daily grind of entrepreneurship a few years ago, he’s also dirt-biked across Panama and visited Brazil with a crew of his former Canopy colleagues.
Indeed, it’s travel that now gives Linton – never a pot-smoker himself – the high he once got from making business deals.
“To me, that’s the best flex you can have,” he says of exploring a new part of the globe.
This version of Linton is a little lower-key than the one who seemed to be on TV every second day when cannabis was legalized for recreational consumption in Canada eight years ago.
Then the sector’s chief evangelist, Linton led the charge as Canopy grew into a global cannabis powerhouse that landed a $5-billion investment from alcohol giant Constellation Brands and soared to a market capitalization of more than $13 billion in 2018.
But less than a year later, as Canopy’s net losses piled up amid a rapid expansion push, Linton was ousted by the company’s board of directors. He shifted focus, founding or funding a series of ventures ranging from online rental marketplace Ruckify to psychedelic pharmaceutical maker Mind Medicine.
Within two months of being fired from Canopy, Linton says, he had invested in 11 companies.
“I’m down to effectively zero of those left,” he adds. “Most of them went public or got bigger or bought or whatever. A couple died. It was a good run.”
Big Brother backer
Rest assured, however, Linton has no plans to ride off quietly into the sunset.
The guy who spent years simultaneously serving as CEO of Kanata software firm Martello Technologies while leading Canopy Growth still has plenty of gas left in his tank. But today much of his energy is devoted to causes such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of Ottawa, The Ottawa Hospital Foundation, where he sits on the fundraising campaign executive committee, and the Canadian Olympic Foundation, where he is a member of the board of directors.
Linton, who was a Big Brother for two decades, speaks glowingly of the organization that mentors local youths. He and his wife Heather are major contributors to Thrive Select Thrift, a social enterprise and thrift store operated by Big Brothers Big Sisters Ottawa. According to Linton, proceeds from the business benefited more than 1,000 young people across the region last year alone.
“I think Big Brothers Big Sisters is society’s best diversion program where they (allow) people at a young enough age to see things they wouldn't know about – opportunities and a way to access them,” he says.
Linton, who’s served on several corporate boards since he left Canopy, says he now finds philanthropic work more fulfilling than helping to oversee a business.
“What happens is when you aren’t old, aren't dead and have a few bucks, a whole bunch of people want you to be involved in different charities. I think that's more interesting to be involved in those than to sit on a board of directors. I've only sat on one or two boards of directors since I left Canopy, and I regret all of them,” he explains.
“A board of directors is there to review history. That’s relatively boring. Usually it’s better to be an adviser, which means you’re the first or second person the CEO calls when things go really wrong. That's why I do (charitable) foundations, because at least you can help.”
At the same time, Linton still has entrepreneurial fire in his belly.
In December, Linton was named chairman of the board at Florida-based Greenlane Holdings, a cannabis and vape accessories supplier that is shifting into the cryptocurrency space.
He says Greenlane will be “the current and last board I’m sitting on.” He’s excited about blockchain’s potential to make supply chains more traceable, he explains, “so you get what you think you’re getting from where you thought you’re getting it at the quality that you’re getting it. Some of that and the financing around that, supply chains, accounts payable, accounts receivable, that’s where we’re starting to find utility.”
Cryptocurrency isn’t the only industry Linton is dabbling in.
If some people like to do crossword puzzles for fun, Linton prefers to dream up new business ideas. He thinks a few might have potential, such as using AI tools to rapidly design and test high-tech digital hearing aids that could then be manufactured on site using 3D printers. Linton figures such a concept could shave thousands of dollars off the cost of a typical hearing aid.
“There are a whole bunch of ways that you could make that market super-bespoke, but not need to have a high-labour approach, not have a high margin,” he says. “I’ve even drawn it out. I just don’t want to do the work.”
Linton has also designed a platform that would use AI to help connect older workers with potential employers. He’s even registered a domain name for the website, but says he has no desire to actually build it – instead, it’s the fun of dreaming it up that gets his juices flowing.
“I mapped that whole thing out,” he says. “I’ve got all the tests of how we can figure out what (jobs) you know how to do, where you should be put, but I don’t want to build it. It’s almost like, some people do sudoku. I don’t do those. I should, but I do these things.
“I think of a business idea, like, several (times) a week. The problem is … I would like to be involved in doing them, but I don’t want to be the doer.”
Still follows old firm
Meanwhile, he still keeps tabs on Canopy Growth. Mark Zekulin, who served as the company’s co-CEO later in his tenure, remains a close friend, and Linton says he wishes the firm well under current boss Luc Mongeau, who took over Canopy early last year and recently helped engineer the acquisition of Quebec-based pot producer MTL Cannabis.
“This guy that’s come in actually understands that if you grow revenue, it's better,” Linton says.
“He gets that culture and a bunch of things contribute to revenue growth. Can he succeed? I don’t know. There’s been a lot of cuts. I don't know if you can put Humpty Dumpty back together again and maybe make it a smaller egg, but at least his orientation is to what I think (Canopy) needs. If you went around here to all the cannabis stores in, say, central Ottawa, I don't know if you’d find a Tweed product, which is very remarkable.”
While Linton has largely stayed out of the entrepreneurial fray in recent years, he admits the temptation to jump back on the rollercoaster is always there.
“Here’s the problem. The only way I know how to build something is to do it 100 per cent of the time, with everything that you can think of, every minute of the day, and literally power it with my energy,” he explains. “The effect is it’s all-consuming, and I like being consumed by it. But I can’t do that and start today and say, ‘Well, I'm going to finish in two years.’ The only way I can do scenarios that I create that way are either to die or get fired. And both of them are not really options I enjoy.
“I don’t want to initiate something I can’t conclude properly. I don’t want to get fired again, and I don't want to die doing it. The only way I will go in someplace … is if I had to go in because we had to terminate the CEO. I would go in and maybe do that for three to six months and find the right person after we reorganized the company to come in and take over.
“I’m always open to that, and as soon as I’m not open to that, I wouldn’t continue to directly invest in companies. Because if you're not willing to stand in and do it, now you’re in an awkward situation, because you can’t be too demanding. There is no, ‘Or else.’” 
