billion dollar ai company was built on lies

Today I want to talk about a 1.8 billion dollar company that's mostly built on lies. But you wouldn't know it from the New York Times article which went viral. And honestly, I was as deceived by it as many people were. I'm not a total AI skeptic. I have my criticisms. But when I saw the New York Times say that AI helped one man and his brother build a

1.8 billion dollar company, I was interested. I wanted to know how they did it and to be honest based on how the article is written I was really impressed. You know this guy has med V It's a telehealth provider of GLP one weight loss drugs and the business just takes off right away because this guy has figured out the power of automating tasks with AI and by 2025 med V's first full year in business the company generated four hundred million dollars in sales this year

They're on track to do 1.8 billion dollars now that is just mind-blowing and in a big way this article credits AI It says AI turbocharged it It's not an AI company But I did it with AI a 1.8 billion dollar company with just two employees in the age of AI It's increasingly possible. And it really preys on this kind of big prophetic idea from the AI bros, specifically Sam Altman,

that this is sort of destined to happen because of how powerful AI is. So it's kind of the first version of a one-person billion-dollar firm. And this article mentions that explicitly. In an email, Mr. Altman said it appeared he had won a bet over whether such a company would appear and he would like to meet the guy who had done it. So on the surface, right, it seems like the American dream.

A guy goes from not being very successful to all of a sudden out of nowhere he has this billion dollar company all because he prompted you know chat GPT or whatever. But this is what they don't tell you. Behind the scenes, right? Behind all the gloss, they don't tell you about the shady billing, fake doctors, warning letter from the FDA, snake oil, class action lawsuit, fake before and after pictures, and fake ads that this whole thing is basically built on.

I'm not gonna argue that in this story. You're also gonna see a lot of allegations from actual customers of the company, which the New York Times doesn't spend a lot of time on. In fact, they mentioned very briefly that like, oh, they did fake before and after photos with AI.

But when some of these practices are discussed, it's mostly done under the guise of, oh, they were just faking it until they made it. And now they're going to, you know, stop taking those shortcuts. Specifically, they say they were gonna fix

some of the shortcuts he had originally taken, like swapping out some of the before and after weight loss photos for ones with real customers. And really the question for me is, is this a legitimate company? Are they scamming people? Did they do it the right way? Is this just AI applied? That's kind of a conflict at the heart of this. So I'm gonna walk you through a lot of the evidence that the New York Times either glossed

over or just explicitly didn't mention. And I wanna credit an amazing investigation by Futurism, which basically investigated all of this in 2025 and specifically calls out things like their website featuring AI-generated photos, things like their product photos having AI-generated text, solution faux injection.

And Futurism also are the people that actually found that this website was using fake photos. Well specifically, they were changing the photos. Here's a weight loss photo that had been circulating around the world. It was hosted by the Daily Mail. This was apparently a Redditor who in 2016 engaged in a weight loss challenge and over

a period of time lost 35 pounds in one year. Now over on Medve's website they used the same guy. They added glasses to his face and a beard and said it's Michael P and he lost 48 pounds in five months. So they increased the amount of weight he had supposedly lost. He was not their customer and they shortened the amount of time he took to do it. But I actually wanted to add on to

Futurism's investigation here because I found they then later in the archive changed the picture entirely. Okay, you'll see though that even though it's a completely different picture, totally different guy, totally different thing, it's still definitely a lie because they kept the guy's name, the amount he lost, and the amount of time he lost it in. They just changed the guy. They took their fake testimonial and just swapped out the photos.

So this whole thing is built on lies. By the way, if you dig into this, you're gonna hear a lot that they blame affiliates for a lot of the shady marketing. But I just wanna be clear that these before and after photos were hosted on their website.

Like this wasn't someone else who did this. They had this on their website and although the New York Times goes through lengths to say oh, they're fixing They're taking those shortcuts away. They're gonna fix all of this stuff I just want to point out that as recently as last month this photo was on here Okay as recently as March so the idea that oh, they're fixing it up to me It seems like they're fixing up for a New York Times profile. Because this is where we need to get to the ads that are still

running right now to this day for these GLP-1 drugs that they're selling online. Because in addition to fake testimonials from customers, they also have a bunch of fake doctors promoting this stuff. This is the meta ads library, where you can see a series of Dr. Sarah Martin, Dr. Monica Ashford, Dr. Lena Fisher, all promoting, guess who?

Medve. And specifically I want to show you that some of these ads are once again lying about before and after photos. Here's one about Medve.

I got this terzepatide pen to try so you don't have to have been reading on it for months. Finally made the move, ready to start, feeling pumped, a bit nervous, but mostly excited. 60 days in and feeling great.

Look how much weight I've lost. All right, so these are supposedly the before and after videos. And it's obvious that this is AI generated. This is not a real doctor. It's also not a real patient. This is just lies. And again, it's hard to distinguish.

Is this an affiliate? Is it not? But I just want you to understand, this is still happening to this day. It's just a bunch of scammy Facebook ads of fake doctor accounts showing you AI slop,

fake patient testimonials. And this is supposedly the great breakthrough in AI, right? This is supposedly the power of AI. I also wanna show you, this is an allegation from a class action lawsuit filed specifically against Open Health Inc., which is one of the partners

of Medve, and you'll see that a lot of the doctors that are on some of these websites, because you have to understand, Medve's just one of the most successful versions. There's a bunch of kind of copycats and they all kind of cite this Dr. Annalisa Carr and Dr. Kelly Tinbrick, Dr. David Mansour.

But here's what these same doctors look like on Medvy's website. Dr. Annalisa Carr, Dr. David Mansour, Dr. Kelly Tinbrick. It's the same name, but different photos of these supposed doctors. Now unlike the Facebook fake doctors that are in all of these ads,

these actually appear to be real people that exist, although their exact involvement is unclear. This is the Futurism article who actually contacted each doctor to ask if they could confirm their involvement with Medve. And one of them insisted he had nothing to do with either company and they need to remove him from their sites. There's also a massive allegation in this class action lawsuit, which is that one of the key compounds that they're selling, they claim is snake oil,

actually, and just doesn't work explicitly. This is the terapotide tablets. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but that is a real compound that exists in some of the injectables, but they're saying that this is an oral formulation. But the class action complaint alleges that the oral Terzapotide is a product

that's never been approved, has no demonstrated mechanism of absorption or efficacy, and functions as modern day snake oil, a pharmacologically inert compound when delivered via a pill. The idea is that as an injection, it would actually work,

but because they're selling it as something you take like a pill, which is obviously more appealing to a lot of consumers, it is inert. And look, this is where I'll have to say, I'm not a doctor, but Eli Lilly,

the people who actually manufacture this stuff, says, there are no human studies, let alone clinical trials, involving any oral terzapatai product, meaning anyone selling it is making unproven claims and is experimenting on unsuspecting Americans.

Now that's a little bit different than, you know, the New York Times glowing article. Sounds a little bit different than the way this has all been framed as some like American dream story. I mean I think that should have been included. Now I also want to mention that Medby has gotten an FDA warning letter. Specifically the warning includes quote

your website's false and misleading claims concerning compounded semi-glutide and terzapatide products.

So really when you dig into this stuff,

this is a really shady website that took advantage of a loose regulatory regime to shove down a bunch of AI slop down people's throats in order to get them to buy products that in some cases, according to the people who actually make the product allegedly don't work in that form, or at least there's no evidence that it works. This is further borne out by some of the reviews where April, for example, who reviewed this product says, almost $2,000 spent and not only did I not lose weight, but I gained. Finally, someone said that the oral doesn't work and I should do the injection. That was when I knew

I was done. This person says, I took the oral terzapatide. Then at the appointment, they said, orals don't work and switched me to injections. This review gives one star and they say, I'm beyond frustrated with this company. I chose the oral medication for ease of use of the product. It was delivered very wet and immediately started melting and was finally told on the third week

that I should not be taking a defective product. Wendy gave it one star and said, medication was deemed ineffective. Trina says do not buy oral terzepatite it doesn't work they don't tell you this during the appointment they accept your money and let you find out for yourself. And maybe just as bad some of the billing practices of course are shady which is what you'd expect from a company like this. Horrible buyer beware they doubled

the price and charged my credit card without sending any medication. Like many people in these reviews I did not receive product, but was charged $3.99 and then told I would get a refund, then later was told they don't refund. So I hope by now you can see why I'm a bit annoyed and feel like I have to give the other side of the story when I see an article like this that uncritically lifts up a company for getting a massive amount of sales for sure, but how they got those sales is just as important, if not more important. I mean this is the exact opposite of a success story, other than their dollars.

And that's what's so worrying is if anything, this is a warning sign about where we're going with AI, where all the doctors, all the lawyers you see online are fake. All the reviews you see are totally fake. The person who's telling you this product saved their life, they're completely AI generated. It's just not a great outcome and this story, if anything, is a sign of that. So yeah, I've taken pains to avoid mentioning the author of this article's name as well as the person who ran Medve. Instead, I specifically want to shout out Maggie Dupre, who did a great job investigating this back in 2025.

Her work, unfortunately, got a lot less attention, Her work, unfortunately, got a lot less attention, but it's a great piece of journalism. So anyways, that's basically it. See ya.