When Juul was first conceived, it was set on being a new kind of electronic cigarette (or e-cigarette) that would help adult smokers finally quit a longstanding habit. Juul was meant to be a leading tech company. But years later, it became much more sinister than it could’ve imagined.
The e-cigarette company was founded by Adam Bowen and James Monsees, two ex-cigarette smokers who met while they were graduate students in product-design at Stanford University. Bowen and Monsees were determined to create a sleek e-cigarette that wasn’t anything like its goofy-looking predecessors. They first developed an e-cigarette called Ploom and later, developed Pax vaporizers for cannabis and loose-leaf tobacco. Juul was created in 2015 and quickly became one of the fastest-growing companies in the world.
Today, Juul is long past its glory days and instead, marred by infamy. The product, which was created for a good cause, ultimately became a public health crisis after it got in the hands of countless children and teens nationwide. Once disaster struck, the company struggled to redeem itself in the public eye.
Juul’s epic rise and subsequent downfall is explored in Netflix’s latest docuseries “Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul.” Over the course of four episodes, the documentary explores Juul's early mission, its financial success and its ardent backlash through a series of interviews and old footage. Current and former employees of the company make several appearances throughout the feature. A few even chose to remain unnamed and anonymous for their own safety. As for Bowen and Monsees, they both agreed to not be featured in the documentary.
“At its height, Juul employed over 4,000 people, and was valued at nearly 40 billion dollars,” the documentary said in its opening. “Today, it’s worth less than 5% of that value.”
Here are the 6 biggest Juul revelations from the series:
"Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul" is currently available for streaming on Netflix. Watch a trailer for it below, via YouTube:
