Medvi, glorified by the NYT as a two-employee startup with $1B+ in revenue, is a warning for how AI can be abused for scammy business and marketing practices
AI isn't the only thing behind Medvi — On Thursday, The New York Times published a thing — and it went viral, declared as a victory for AI:
Marcus on AIGary Marcus
Context & Ripple Effects
The earlier coverage established that Medvi used more than a dozen AI tools to run a telehealth business with two full-time employees and reported rapid sales growth. This follow-up shifts the focus from operational leverage to whether the two-person, AI-enabled growth narrative conceals questionable marketing or business practices.
That matters because the story’s viral framing can turn an exceptional operating model into a template for other founders and investors. It also echoes earlier warnings that inflated claims about AI capabilities can distort how the public and policymakers assess what AI is actually doing.
First-order effects
Medvi’s growth story faces a higher burden of scrutiny: attention moves from its small headcount and revenue claims to the conduct of its telehealth and marketing operation.
The New York Times’ viral portrayal is also implicated, since celebratory coverage can amplify a company’s credibility before its underlying practices receive equivalent examination.
Second-order effects
Other AI-enabled telehealth businesses and investors have stronger incentives to separate genuine automation gains from marketing claims that rely on the aura of AI efficiency.
Media outlets covering “tiny team” successes may need to test the operational and customer-facing mechanisms behind the headline metrics, rather than treating low headcount as evidence of a superior business model.
Third-order effects
If similar cases recur, AI-enabled scale will become less of a stand-alone signal of business quality; disclosure about staffing, automation, distribution, and customer practices will matter more.
The episode suggests a broader accountability gap: AI can compress the cost of operating and marketing a business faster than existing norms for verifying the claims used to promote it.
The trend: This is one data point in the shift from celebrating AI-enabled lean operations to demanding evidence that the growth and distribution practices behind them are legitimate.
BREAKING 🚨: This is extremely illegal. This is Matthew Gallagher, who created 800+ Facebook accounts posing as fake doctors to advertise on Facebook, and went on to build a GLP-1 telehealth company with just $20,000, AI, and only one full-time teammate, his brother. The New York …
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
they have ~800 ads running right now from fake doctors (and another 4,000 running with fake testimonials and from fake organizations). This is highly illegal (using an AI generated doctor image and quote). The same quote is being used by hundreds of doctors (who are not real) [im…
Interesting telehealth class action lawsuit: A guy bought “oral tirzepatide” from MEDvi (not a defendant). Problem is, allegedly, oral tirzepatide is not a compound that actually exists. It is allegedly impossible for it to exist. Inert. He's suing OpenLoop and Triad for [image]
I am appalled by the puff piece NYT wrote about “billion dollar” company Medvi. Here's a very different perspective: https://garymarcus.substack.com/ ...
They made facebook accounts for 800+ fake doctors (I had Claude verify, none of them are actually doctors, especially not “Dr. Tuckr Carlzyn MD") to advertise on Facebook. This is extremely illegal, just takes FTC to notice it and it'll be hard for them to advertise on FB [image]
The entire Medvi run is a case study of just absolute big dicking it at every turn, in the most eggregious way possible, with 0 fucks given in any way Men can't conquer the world anymore so they run up $1b blackhat schemes and then flex on new york times Lesson in there
Great video by @coffeebreak_YT breaking down questionable aspects of Medvi - Has an FDA warning letter - Ads w/ fake doctors - AI generated before / after photos & testimonials NYT article mentions none of this for some reason, full video in reply [video]
Hot take: the Medvi story has nothing to do with AI. A guy built a $1.8B company with 2 people. Cool. But strip away the AI headline and look at what's underneath: Telehealth subscriptions. I've been in this space. I've seen the numbers up close. The LTVs are borderline unfair
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 [i…
The @nytimes writes a hype piece about a clear healthcare scam and at no point goes “hey maybe something is off here?” And people wonder why no one in the business world trusts NYT to be objective? You guys barely understand how anything works! It's embarrassing incompetence.
medvi is only the tip of the iceberg if you knew how people are scaling with ai ugc fake doctors are nothing compared to what really happens in the ai ugc industry oh god you are so naive
Friend got a marketing email from Medvi this morning. Email copy aside, the provider they are using in the screenshot is an actual doctor, not an NP, whose real name is Alec Wier, and he is COMPLETELY UNAFFILIATED with Medvi. This entire company is run on fraud and deception [ima…
Watching in realtime as people learn about white label, drop shipping, and affiliate marketing is like seeing cavemen “fire bad” White label telemedicine is a huge benefit with a net positive for humanity. It has been the driving force behind big pharma lowering prices and
Medvi was sued in a class action last month for violating California's anti-spam law. “MEDVi's affiliate marketers send spam use falsified header information, spoofed domains and nonsensical sending addresses to evade spam filters. They also use false and deceptive subject [image…
One hundred percent correct. If you're building a brick-and-mortar local bakery, ok. If you're building a “selling fake drugs that don't exist promoted by fake doctors who don't exist” business, definitely stfu!
I think this Medvi situation is the perfect reason why you do not follow the absolute brain dead take “build in public” Even ignoring the actual issues, when you're big enough, everyone is going to come for you.
I really did not want to be writing this morning. But this issue is too important. It's been said that the last thing the weather person should do before going on the air is look out the window. The _day before_ @eringriffith profiled Medvi in @nytimes as the AI company of the
In May 2025, I first reported that Medvi was very obviously fabricating before-and-after weight loss images of purported GLP-1 customers who were not real. “Sometimes you have to see it to believe it,” the company stated next to the falsified images. https://futurism.com/... [ima…
Confused as to why Matthew Gallagher and Medvi are catching so much heat. Still haven't seen one person calling them scammers explain why. The New York Times verified the financials. Hims and Hers is a publicly traded telehealth company prescribing the same category of weight