Meanwhile: Juul just got a $2 billion dividend payment from its new investor Altria. It decided to give that money to employees.

$2 billion from Altria Group, Inc. (aka Philip Morris Companies). Depending on how this is split among the 1500 employees, there’s a potential $1.3MM split per person.

So Juul's move is helping the company win the talent wars. It's also helped the company win the news cycle. Up until recently, most of the news about the company had to do with federal regulators accusing Juul of selling its product to minors, creating an addiction to nicotine and possibly affecting their brain development. Last month, the company closed down its Facebook and Instagram accounts and stopped selling its mango, fruit, creme, and cucumber pods in retail stores, in a bid to reduce teenage usage ahead of potential governmental action.

Now that the professionals with experience covertly marketing to children are involved, expect less effective oversight. And while you’ll likely hear people say that it’s not as bad as smoking; in many cases, it’s actually much worse. Designed to be deliberately so in some ways.