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turbinetree

(27,585 posts) Mon Apr 6, 2026, 05:42 PM Monday

How A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8 Billion Company

Who needs more than two employees when artificial intelligence can do so many corporate tasks? It’s super efficient — and a little bit lonely.

Erin Griffith
Reporting from Los Angeles
April 2, 2026

Matthew Gallagher took just two months, $20,000 and more than a dozen artificial intelligence tools to get his start-up off the ground.

From his house in Los Angeles, Mr. Gallagher, 41, used A.I. to write the code for the software that powers his company, produce the website copy, generate the images and videos for ads and handle customer service. He created A.I. systems to analyze his business’s performance. And he outsourced the other stuff he couldn’t do himself.

His start-up, Medvi, a telehealth provider of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, got 300 customers in its first month. In its second month, it gained 1,000 more. In 2025, Medvi’s first full year in business, the company generated $401 million in sales.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/technology/ai-billion-dollar-company-medvi.html

4 replies

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Highlight:

How A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8 Billion Company (Original Post) turbinetree Monday OP

They created a second gig for the online Viagra docs? hunter Monday #1

Companies like this, that rake in the money with few employees, should be taxed to the max. Intractable Monday #2

Yepper...............its kind of tiring that they are only taxed at whatever and everyone else picks up turbinetree 1 hr ago #3

That NYT story is pro-AI bullshit, a disaster as journalism. Gary Marcus's correction: highplainsdem 36 min ago #4

hunter

(40,716 posts)

1. They created a second gig for the online Viagra docs?

Reply to turbinetree (Original post)

Mon Apr 6, 2026, 05:53 PM

Monday

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A!

What a country!

Intractable

(2,195 posts)

2. Companies like this, that rake in the money with few employees, should be taxed to the max.

Reply to turbinetree (Original post)

Mon Apr 6, 2026, 06:10 PM

Monday

turbinetree

(27,585 posts)

3. Yepper...............its kind of tiring that they are only taxed at whatever and everyone else picks up

Reply to Intractable (Reply #2)

Wed Apr 8, 2026, 10:53 AM

1 hr ago

their slack on how the tax laws are written to benefit them...............

highplainsdem

(62,308 posts)

4. That NYT story is pro-AI bullshit, a disaster as journalism. Gary Marcus's correction:

Reply to turbinetree (Original post)

Wed Apr 8, 2026, 11:36 AM

36 min ago

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-back-story-behind-the-first-18

Social.media posts he included:

Link to tweet

Aakash Gupta
@aakashgupta
The NYT just profiled Medvi as the AI success story of the decade. $1.8B in projected revenue, 2 employees, Sam Altman's prediction made real.

Here's what the NYT didn't lead with.

Medvi received FDA Warning Letter #721455 in February 2026 for misbranding violations. Their clinician network OpenLoop suffered a data breach in January 2026 that exposed 1.6 million patient records. Futurism reported they used AI-generated deepfake before-and-after photos in their marketing. A class action lawsuit was filed in Delaware in November 2025. And now they're running 800+ fake doctor accounts on Facebook to sell compounded GLP-1s.

The company holds no proprietary technology, no licensed physician network, no pharmacy infrastructure. It outsources every regulated function to CareValidate and OpenLoop while keeping the customer relationship, checkout flow, and ad spend. The entire business is a marketing layer on top of rented infrastructure, and the marketing itself is built on fabricated medical credentials.

Hims did $2.4B in revenue last year with 2,442 employees and a 5.5% net margin. Medvi claims 16.2% net margin with 2 people. The margin difference tells you where the compliance spending went.

The AI built the website. The AI runs customer service. The AI generated the deepfake before-and-afters. And now 800+ fake doctor accounts are running paid ads on Facebook. The entire company is an AI-powered fraud machine that happens to also sell real drugs.

Link to tweet

And from YouTube:

Gary points out that Futurism did a story on that scam company nearly a year ago - May 29, 2025:

https://futurism.com/medvi-ai-ozempic

Gary concludes:

-snip-

A friend of mine who has been tracking this for a while had sees Medvi as “a fraud-layer on top of also-scammy-but-possibly-less-illegal platforms”, speculating that “If there is any money there, they will be sued by all their suppliers and vendors, because I’m sure they’re in violation of every agreement in terms of compliance efforts, safe data handling, etc.” (The friend also is doubtful of the revenue reports, asking “why would this be the only thing they’re telling the truth about?”)

All in all, glorifying Medvi was not The New York Times’ finest hour.

-snip-

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