At most offices in America, smoking a joint during your lunch break or eating cannabis-laced brownies at your desk would land you in HR.

But in some states, not only won’t you be punished — you might be rewarded.

Kyle Sherman and Chase Wiseman cofounded Flowhub, which provides software for the cannabis industry, in 2015. The Denver-based startup has been a weed-friendly workplace from day one.

“Our philosophy at Flowhub is to get s*** done,” said Sherman. “If it helps our employees get work done, then we don’t care if they consume at work.”

Sherman and Chase both consume marijuana at work, either in weekly brainstorming meetings or toward the end of the day.

“It definitely surfaces new ideas and a fresh take on things,” said Sherman.

While recreational marijuana is legal in Colorado, smoking of any kind isn’t allowed in the building. So Flowhub’s 18 employees, most of them millennials, are free to bring in cannabis-infused edibles, sodas and juices.

So far, there haven’t been any negative outcomes.

“Our clients are some of the biggest firms in the cannabis industry,” said Sherman. “We have to be on point with our work. We’ve never had a problem yet.”

Related: Forget Ohio. Ten more states try to legalize marijuana

High There! and MassRoots are just across the street from each other in downtown Denver.

Both are social networking platforms for cannabis users.

High There! launched 10 months ago and has 150,000 active users. MassRoots, which launched in 2013, models itself as a Facebook (FB) for pot users and expects to cross 1 million users by 4/20.

Both startups allow weed at work.

“Being in Denver, we’re in the heart of the cannabis industry,” said Darren Roberts, cofounder of High There! “Cannabis is part of our culture.”

Still, Roberts said it’s not like his employees are constantly stoned at work. Similar to Flowhub, he said consumption typically happens later in the day or at brainstorming sessions.

“It has led us to breakthrough moments for our business,” he said. “So yes, it’s been very effective for us.”

Related: Pot startups cash in on a wave of legalization

MassRoots cofounder Isaac Dietrich schedules weekly rooftop smoke sessions at his apartment building. They’re meant for strategic planning and employee bonding.

“I thought up MassRoots when I was smoking weed in my college friend’s apartment,” said Dietrich, whose firm has 30 employees and has raised $4.4 million in funding.

“Our general philosophy is that we need to be as productive and creative as possible, everyday,” he said. “If cannabis facilitates that, then we’re allowing it.”

While pot-oriented businesses tend to be more open about their consumption, not all companies are eager to talk about it. Many startups fear it could hurt their chances with potential investors. And in states like California, pot is still only legal for medical purposes.

Brandon David is a sales executive with a San Francisco-based software firm (he declined to name the company) that has hundreds of customers, including many in the cannabis industry.

“It’s very well known that most of the employees here consume cannabis regularly during the work day,” he said.

Related: Should I invest my retirement savings in a marijuana business?

David said he uses a cannabis vaporizer daily at work for medical reasons.

“There are so many daily challenges in a startup environment, and you need to press ahead,” he said. Pot helps him stay focused by managing his stress and anxiety. “Sometimes I get a second wind and I’ll put in a few more hours.”

David said it’s an open secret that many more businesses are embracing the notion of consuming pot at work.

“There definitely are far more that allow it than are willing to openly talk about it,” he said.

CNNMoney (New York) First published January 18, 2016: 7:44 AM ET

Kids don’t need to know how to code to construct robots with Cubelets.

The blocks have embedded magnets that let them snap together to form robots of any shape. Each block has a tiny computer inside it and can communicate with its neighboring block.

“This makes Cubelets unique. It is a collection of lots of little blocks, each with its own brain,” said Eric Schweikardt, CEO and founder of Modular Robotics.

The blocks have different functionalities: They might be programmed to sense light and temperature, or have little motors to help them move around.

Cubelets (priced between $157 and $500) are already available in stores.

“What is wine? Is it a cider or something? I hated the first sip.”

That was Ntsiki Biyela’s first reaction after she won a scholarship to study winemaking in 1998.

Now she’s an international award winning vintner and resident winemaker at the Stellekaya winery in Stellenbosch — east of Cape Town, South Africa.

She’s also the country’s first black female winemaker in an industry dominated by white men.

“I’m surrounded by men who are supportive, but in general it’s a struggle because you have to do twice as much to prove yourself,” she told CNNMoney.

Her wine is sold globally but her main market is the United States. And she has plans to start her own brand later this year.

Related: South Africa’s wine industry is booming

Biyela’s life began in 1978 in a small village in the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal, where the only alcohol she encountered was home brewed beer.

As a black South African, Biyela suffered discrimination and oppression under the brutal apartheid regime.

Driven by an urge to create a better life for herself, she started looking for opportunities outside of her village.

“I wanted to do chemical engineering but I couldn’t because of the financial situation,” she said.

Soon after apartheid was abolished in 1994, South African Airways began offering wine making scholarships as part of a program to help transform the country’s economy. Biyela jumped at the chance.

“There was an opportunity to study, and become something,” she told CNNMoney.

So she left her village and family to pursue a career in making something she had never tasted.

At Stellenbosch University, Biyela not only had everything to learn about wine but she had to study in a language synonymous with oppression, Afrikaans.

“It was difficult. I didn’t know Afrikaans but I had no choice,'” she said.

Graduating was just the first step. Biyela still had to find work in an industry that wasn’t exactly welcoming to a black South African woman.

She was turned away three times before she landed a job at what she calls the “modern” Stellekaya. And she quickly found success. Her first harvest in 2004 produced an award winning wine.

It was a bottle of that very vintage that Biyela took back to her home village.

During the trip, her grandmother Aslina tasted wine for the very first time. Her response? “It’s nice.”

Biyela is now preparing to launch a new wine as an independent wine maker. She’ll be leaving Stellekaya and will buy grapes from farmers because she can’t afford her own vineyards just yet.

But she already has a name for the brand: Aslina.

CNNMoney (Stellenbosch, South Africa) First published February 24, 2016: 11:41 AM ET

What’s it like to pitch to Richard Branson? Soon, three startups will know firsthand.

As part of the Extreme Tech Challenge, entrepreneurs from three companies will travel to Necker Island, Branson’s private island, and pitch their business directly to the titan.

Sphero, Bloom Technologies and Giroptic beat out over 1,000 other startups. Each will get 15 minutes to present to Branson and several other judges.

Pitch day is the final round of the six-month challenge, which is run by nonprofit MaiTai Global.

Related: BB-8 maker takes its robotic ball to schools

Boulder-based Sphero catapulted to fame last year with “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

Sphero created the pint-sized robotic toy version of the movie’s BB-8 character. It became one of the hottest toys of 2015.

But before BB-8, the six-year-old firm was quietly making waves among tech enthusiasts for its first invention : an app-controlled robotic ball.

Sphero even evolved it into a teaching tool for schools.

“This past year has been transformational for Sphero on all levels,” said CEO Paul Berberian. “Earning one of the top spots to pitch Branson is an opportunity of a lifetime for our company.”

Related: Richard Branson reveals his “Aha” moment

Bloom Technologies, founded in 2014, has developed prenatal technology and put it at the fingertips of expectant moms.

The San Francisco-based startup created a wearable device that syncs with a smartphone and allows women to measure the frequency, duration, and intensity of contractions.

Giroptic, based in Lille, France, is the third finalist. It created a 360-degree camera that can record full spherical images and videos and will work with any virtual reality platform.

The three finalists will pitch to Branson, along with Google Maps co-inventor Lars Rasmussen and Samsung Electronics President Young Sohn, on February 10.

The winner will be picked that same day. All three companies will get the same prize package: mentoring from top entrepreneurs, tech and infrastructure support from IBM (IBM) and Amazon (AMZN), and the potential to raise new funding from investors at Necker Island.

However, the winner gets the bragging rights and an opportunity to be invited back to Necker Island and schmooze with Richard Branson next year.

CNNMoney (New York) First published January 14, 2016: 2:28 PM ET

The cannabis industry is quickly becoming a magnet for female entrepreneurs.

Medical or recreational marijuana is legal in 23 states and the District of Columbia. As legalization has increased, so have sales. In 2013, the industry was at $1.8 billion.

In 2015, it was estimated at $5.4 billion (accounting for evolving business models), according to the ArcView Group, a cannabis-focused investment and research firm.

“The cannabis industry is so new that there are very few barriers to get in, especially for women,” said Giadha DeCarcer, CEO and founder of New Frontier, which provides data analysis for the marijuana industry.

More importantly, she said the marijuana industry isn’t as heavily skewed toward men as many other industries. It’s what personally appealed to DeCarcer, a former investment banker and consultant in technology and defense.

“Those are all heavily male dominated areas. It was the biggest frustration for me,” she said. “It made it harder to rise to the top.”

DeCarcer launched New Frontier in 2014. She said the business doubled in value and size in less than a year. She said it’s profitable but won’t disclose revenue.

Related: Take a weed break at work. It’s allowed

Women account for 36% of all executives in the cannabis market, according to Marijuana Business Daily. That far surpasses the 22% national average for women in executive roles across all industries, according to Pew Research Center.

Finding the overall number of female cannabis entrepreneurs is harder to come by. But the anecdotal evidence is strong that more women are getting a foot in the door.

Jane West is at the forefront of this trend.

West, “a proud cannabis user,” cofounded Women Grow, a professional networking group for women in cannabis. Its first event in 2014 had 70 attendees. Now it has chapters in 44 cities, with 21,000 subscribers to its weekly newsletter and 30,000 followers on Instagram.

The Women Grow summit kicks off February 3 in Denver. West expects the three-day event to have more than 1,500 attendees this year, including singer-songwriter, Melissa Etheridge.

“There is nothing but opportunity for women in this industry. We need to spread the word,” said West. “Women are coming up with terrific business ideas. Many of them are driven by their advocacy for legal marijuana.”

Related: The women of marijuana

Salwa Ibrahim has been an advocate of legal marijuana for a long time. “I’m also from the Bay Area, which is the birthplace of the medical marijuana movement,” she said.

Ibrahim and a business partner opened Blum, a medical marijuana dispensary, in Oakland, California, in 2012. It was a steep learning curve, but she made some smart moves to quickly get established.

“I attracted the best possible talent and gave them incentives to stay and grow with the business,” she said. Blum now sees 800 to 1,000 patients a day, and has added a cultivation center, production facility and 70 employees. More than half of her staff are women.

Last month, her business was acquired by Terra Tech Corp (TRTC). Ibrahim is staying on as executive director and adding two dispensaries in Las Vegas and one in Reno.

On the cultivation side, cannabis growers are still predominantly men.

That doesn’t sit well with Jennifer Gote.

Related: Forget Ohio, ten more states try to legalize marijuana

Gote fell into the industry out of necessity. “I got out of a bad relationship and became a single mom to four kids,” said Gote, who was living in Arizona. A friend suggested she take up a job as a trimmer at a marijuana cultivation facility.

“That’s how I got started,” she said. In a year, she learned every aspect of the business — growing, harvesting, packaging and distribution.

When a manager position came open, she threw her hat in and was promoted. “I earned everyone’s respect because I worked my way up,” she said.

She quit last November to start AOW Management, a cannabis cultivation and dispensary management company.

“Business is going really very well,” she said. But Gote now wants to see more women on her side of the business.

“I would love to hire women,” she said. “In fact, I would hire women right now with no experience. This way I can teach them from the beginning everything that I learned.”

CNNMoney (New York) First published February 3, 2016: 7:38 AM ET

Touchdown for Death Wish Coffee Company! The startup just scored a free 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl on February 7.

The Super Bowl is the most watched event of the year and is notoriously expensive for advertisers. A 30-second ad during this year’s game is expected to cost a record-breaking $5 million.

But for Death Wish Coffee, the hefty pricetag is irrelevant.

The company beat out 15,000 other small businesses in the Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Big Game contest, which gets it an all-expenses-paid ad to air during the Super Bowl.

“Winning this commercial is beyond our wildest dreams,” said Mike Brown, owner of Death Wish Coffee, based in Round Lake, New York. “It’s amazing to think that our 11-employee company will be on the same stage as the brands we’ve always admired.”

It’s the second time that Intuit has run the contest, which is voted on by the public. In 2013, Goldieblox — which makes engineering toys for girls — won.

Related: Super Bowl tickets heading for a record

Big brands like Budweiser, Doritos and Coca-Cola (KO) typically dominate the ad lineup — Death Wish Coffee will be the only small business ad to be seen by more than 100 million viewers.

It’s a big deal for a business that’s only four years old.

Brown said he was inspired to create an ultra-strong dark roast blend simply because there was demand.

“I’ve had a coffee shop for years and my customers were always asking for stronger coffee,” he said.

“An average cup of coffee has 217 mg of caffeine. Ours is double that,” said Brown. Last year Death Wish Coffee logged $3 million in revenue.

The brand has also developed a fanatical fan following. “We have fans who’ve tattooed our logo on their chest,” said Brown.

Related: How the Super Bowl will handle millions of selfies

Brown said he’s excited for Death Wish Coffee to bask in the 30-second spotlight.

“We’ve revamped our website, hired more employees and we’re getting ready for it,” he said. “We’re already in about 100 grocery stores locally. I want everyone in the country and around the world to taste out coffee.”

As for the ad itself, Brown said it’s like a movie trailer.

“It will shock everyone that it’s an ad about a small business,” he said.

CNNMoney (New York) First published January 28, 2016: 8:54 AM ET

Carbon dioxide gets a bad rap.

Out of all the waste gases produced by human activity — manufacturing, agriculture, electricity production, transportation — carbon dioxide is the biggest byproduct and is fingered as the leading culprit behind global warming.

In fact, it accounts for 76% of all annual global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

But Emily Cole doesn’t focus on the negatives. The 32-year-old scientist has created technology that would recycle carbon dioxide into something extremely useful.

Related: Elon. Evolution

Cole is cofounder and chief science officer of Liquid Light. The startup is pioneering a process to convert carbon dioxide gas into a chemical that can be used to make consumer products.

She founded the startup in 2009 and immediately got to work developing technology to capture carbon dioxide and recycle it.

“Right now, waste carbon dioxide is captured and sequestered,” said Cole. This means the gas is collected from facilities like industrial plants or manufacturing sites, compressed in pipelines and then injected into rock formations deep underground.

“Instead of storing it, we’re utilizing it and converting it into something of value,” she said.

Liquid Light is the first company that’s developed a catalyst (a combination of water, sunlight, electricity and other chemicals) to make other chemicals out of carbon dioxide.

“We take carbon dioxide from its source [like power plants or factories], add water and electricity to it, and create liquid fuels and chemicals such as ethylene glycol and glycolic acid,” said Cole.

Those chemicals could eventually replace petroleum in everyday consumer products like plastic bottles, carpets, antifreeze, even facial creams.

The benefits are manifold: “We reduce our dependence on petroleum, which is not renewable,” said Cole. “We make these products with lower carbon dioxide emissions and we can possibly lower the production costs.”

Related: These startups could change the world

Cole has a Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton University. But her passion goes back to her high school days in Texas.

“I had a great teacher who really got me interested and excited about chemistry,” she said.

At Princeton, she collaborated with Professor Andrew Bocarsly, who had already been working on ways to recycle carbon dioxide. “His project was stalled for many years because there wasn’t a lot of interest or funding for it,” she said. But she saw potential, and worked to take his research one step further.

After graduating from Princeton, Cole attracted investment from venture capitalists to start her firm and develop the technology. (While she declined to say how much Liquid Light has raised, CrunchBase reports it has received $23.5 million in several rounds of funding.)

Related: 3D printers could soon make human skin

Liquid Light, which now has a team of 12, hopes to pilot the technology next year and then license it for commercial use.

Big companies have already taken note.

Last year, Coca Cola (KO) partnered with Liquid Light to help accelerate the commercialization of the technology. The technology is especially relevant to Coca-Cola because it could help reduce the cost of producing mono-ethylene glycol, one of the components used to make the company’s plant-based PET plastic bottles.

She said there was another “big industry name” that would soon be announcing a partnership as well.

“My dream is really that we’re able to commercialize this technology and reduce our dependence on oil,” she said.

CNNMoney (New York) First published February 12, 2016: 9:15 AM ET

Solving the refugee crisis should be a collaborative effort.

That’s the message of a global grassroots nonprofit called Techfugees.

Techfugees held its first U.S.-based event on Tuesday. Roughly 180 tech professionals gathered in New York City at Civic Hall.

Attendees — who hailed from places like Warby Parker, Mastercard and General Assembly — had eight hours to work on tackling four aspects of refugee education, like enrollment barriers and language hurdles.

“People don’t know how to take their compassion and turn it into action,” said Brian Reich, director at The Hive, an innovation lab that’s a part of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Our job is to move the refugee crisis into a frame people understand — into a product challenge.”

Related: How to make Americans care about refugees

Techfugees was founded in September, shortly after images surfaced of a dead young Syrian child who washed ashore in Turkey. A small group of European techies wanted to help people leverage their technical skills and innovative thinking in a way that could tangibly help agencies and refugees.

“Most of the people in the room wouldn’t have responded to ‘cry and buy’ messaging,” said Reich, referencing the traditional methods of appealing to emotion for donations. “This is not about philanthropy on the margins.”

Related: This plastic toilet could save lives

The goal of this particular Techfugees event was to create a list of the major questions that tech needs to answer — and then start thinking about how the solutions might look.

Questions like: What keeps girls from attending school? Who are the teachers and what are their backgrounds? What kind of devices do students have and how reliable is their Internet access?

There were hundreds of questions, and the discussions at the New York event just scratched the surface. The idea is that other groups will use it as a jumping off point and start actually coding solutions. (A group called Hacktivation plans to host a 48-hour coding retreat for Bay Area engineers to build some of this out.)

Opinion: Big business must ‘hack’ refugee crisis

Traditionally, “no one talks to each other,” Reich said. “Groups are all trying to solve [the crisis], but events happen disparately.”

The beauty of Techfugees — which Reich said has 25,000 in its global community — is that it brings together people from all different disciplines: nonprofits, startups, corporations and government.

“I hope that today will just be the beginning,” said Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who opened the event Tuesday morning. “We are facing the largest refugee crisis since World War II. It is a 21st century crisis and we need a 21st century solution.”

CNNMoney (New York) First published February 9, 2016: 5:35 PM ET

Lehman Brothers is synonymous with financial catastrophe, but one entrepreneur hopes the brand will make him a fortune — as a range of Scotch whiskey.

James Green, 34, is launching three whiskies with Lehman Brothers on the label. The most popular of the range, “Ashes of Disaster,” claims to have a “wicked suggestion of burning banknotes, a hint of ripe autumn fruit about to fall.”

Lehman Brothers collapsed in the largest U.S. bankruptcy in history in September 2008, sparking the global financial crisis.

A British real estate investor, Green filed in 2013 with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to use the term “Lehman Brothers” for bars and spirits.

He says he’s now taking online orders for the whiskey from bar chains in London and New York.

Barclays Bank (BCS), which bought parts of Lehman Brothers, filed in 2014 to stop Green using the name. It noted, among other arguments, that the investment bank often gave “cut crystal whiskey decanter[s] etched with the mark Lehman Brothers” as gifts, which means its trademark should extend beyond banking. The filings show Barclays suspended its case in October 2015.

Barclays declined to comment.

Green told CNNMoney an outcome of the dispute is “pending” so his lawyers have told him to sell as much whiskey as he can.

“It’s full speed ahead,” said Green, who expects bartenders on both sides of the Atlantic to be pouring the whiskey within months.

Related: Drink up? Whiskey investing brings huge returns

Another of Green’s Lehman whiskies is his spicy American-made “Snapfire,” which he suggests is “perfect with reckless maneuvers, long gambles, and explosive consequences. Drink alone, if possible.”

Green is now looking for investors to help him open Lehman Brothers themed bars, including one on Wall Street. It would perhaps be the perfect place to sell the third whiskey in the range, called “Evergreen.” It is being marketed as “perfect for when fortune is with you and you are riding your luck. Tastes best when you are sitting on top of the world.”

CNNMoney (London) First published February 8, 2016: 10:34 AM ET

Kat Nouri has a love-hate relationship with plastic.

As an artist and product designer, she’s enamored with its transparency and the endless creative uses for it. But as a mother, and an environmentally-conscious consumer, she’s disgusted by it.

“Plastic is a big part of our daily lives. There’s no denying it,” said Nouri. “But every time we use more of it , we’re harming ourselves and Earth.”

So she’s doing something about it.

On Thursday, Nouri unveiled Stasher, a line of sandwich bags made entirely of silicone, a natural material made of sand, rock and oxygen.

Related: More plastic than fish in oceans by 2050

Like plastic sandwich bags, the silicone bags feature the same pinch-press, air-tight closure. But the comparisons end there, said Nouri.

Her silicone bags are petroleum-free and contain no PVC, latex or phthalates.

And while 20 million plastic bags end up in U.S. landfills each day, Stasher bags are reusable for at least three years and can be frozen, microwaved or put in the dishwasher.

With dry-erase markers, you can scribble notes and labels directly onto the bag’s surface. Not feeling creative? The bags also come in fun designs — think circus, space and monster themes.

Stasher bags will be available online in February and in retail stores in March.

Related: She’s $10 million closer to replacing plastic bottles

Nouri has been on a personal crusade for more than a decade to help consumers replace everyday plastic products with safer silicone-based alternatives.

She was partly motivated by her upbringing in Iran.

“My father was a champion wrestler and my mother has a PhD in nutrition,” she said. “So I was very conscious about health and nutrition growing up.”

Nouri immigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area when she was 10.

“I became somewhat of a rebel,” said Nouri. “I was just very creative and wanted to do things my way.”

After graduating from UC Berkeley, Nouri took a sales and marketing internship at IBM. “But I always had a little business venture on the side,” she said. “People would constantly tell me I was a natural entrepreneur.”

Nouri launched her company Modern Twist in 2005. The company makes silicone-based placemats, coasters and a variety of baby items, including bibs, cups and food containers.

“As consumers, we focus more on what we eat,” said Nouri, who has three kids. “To me, especially as a mom, it was just as important to evaluate where we are putting our food. I was packing three lunches a day in plastic bags.”

Today, Modern Twist is profitable, generates about $10 million a year in revenue, and its products are sold in over 4,000 retailers nationwide.

Related: No really. This pencil grows into a tomato

Nouri said Stasher bags are a natural evolution of her vision for a plastics-free world.

She spent three years and $500,000 researching and developing the silicon sandwich bags. “It was a big investment for us at the time and I nearly went broke,” she said.

The silicone bags (which sell for $12.99 to $14.99 apiece) do cost quite a bit more than a box of disposable plastic bags. Still, she’s hopeful that the long-term economic and environmental value of the silicone bags will sway consumers to buy them.

In the meantime, Nouri is already planning to expand the Stasher line with other sizes later this year.

“I hope that these bags can become a symbol of how we are rethinking plastic and caring for our planet,” she said.

CNNMoney (New York) First published January 28, 2016: 8:00 AM ET