Meet Don Levin, the billionaire who has proven that success doesn’t always come from personal experience.
Levin founded D.R.L. Enterprises, which owns Republic Brands, the top seller of rolling papers in the world. Levin doesn’t smoke weed or know how to roll a joint.
“I was the guy who smoked a joint and I'd be in the corner drooling,” he said. “I was comatose. It killed me; I was the odd person out.”
So what's Levin’s secret? Vertical integration. He owns the brands and the factories that turn hemp, wood, bamboo and rice into paper as well as the manufacturing plant that puts the paper into booklets. With over 1.2 billion booklets of rolling paper produced annually, Levin’s mills could wrap the planet 150 times per year. …