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

nytimes.com

21–30 of 91 posts

Re: A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company

#23
On one hand this is so impressive. On the other it seems like a company selling drugs or medical services using misleading/generated photos and reviews is not great and extremely risky.

This must largely be going into testing and generating marketing content? I am extremely curious about his processes.

Re: A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company

#24
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it capitalism? Adobe fucks you, Microsoft will "upgrade" your Office^W Copilot 365 license to 25-seats(1) if you don't notice, Tesla promises self-driving but drives you into the back of the trucks (what, you didn't read the disclaimer?), even the "leader of the free world" is now a crypto-huckster selling you bibles with his name on it... and is killing civilians in the Middle East and making profit by saying…

Not capitalism in the way many of us capitalists think it should be practiced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments

Isn't this the same no true scotsman argument as "true communism, as Marx envisioned, has never been put to practice"?

Re: A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like that’s basically what entrepreneurship is now

Isn't it capitalism? Adobe fucks you, Microsoft will "upgrade" your Office^W Copilot 365 license to 25-seats(1) if you don't notice, Tesla promises self-driving but drives you into the back of the trucks (what, you didn't read the disclaimer?), even the "leader of the free world" is now a crypto-huckster selling you bibles with his name on it... and is killing civilians in the Middle East and making profit by saying…

The beauty of capitalism is that you can just not use Adobe, Microsoft or drive Tesla. Blaming Trump on capitalism is also quite a stretch.

Re: A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company

#26
post #6

Looks like they are selling GLP-1 prescriptions online, with online consultations. This is borderline illegal.

This was the same criticism levied against AirBnB, Uber, cryptocurrency, prediction markets, sports betting apps, etc. The border of legal and illegal is a good place to make money and change.

Yes doing illegal things and getting away with it is a great way to make money.

Re: A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company

#27
"That gave Matthew Gallagher breathing room to fix some shortcuts he had initially taken, like swapping out the before-and-after weight-loss photos for ones from real customers. Some photos on Medvi’s homepage remain A.I.-generated."

Cool, another scammy internet company preying on people's insecurities. Glad the NY Times spent the effort to tell us about it and didn't spend any time questioning this company [1].

[1] https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-c...

Re: A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company

#28
post #10

The opposite of an “A.I” company, he is reselling the services of another filled with humans. A great, profitable business, sure, a notable success, yes, but a 2-man billion dollar company made possible by A.I? No. Businesses like this have existed for decades and are vulnerable to their service providers stealing the business out from under them.

Well, this guy isn't training models in his basement—if that's what you're looking for?

I think the point of this article is that AI enables people to do so much more? Much of marketing is creating engaging content and AI allows people to create more than ever.

Re: A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company

#29
post #10

The opposite of an “A.I” company, he is reselling the services of another filled with humans. A great, profitable business, sure, a notable success, yes, but a 2-man billion dollar company made possible by A.I? No. Businesses like this have existed for decades and are vulnerable to their service providers stealing the business out from under them.

A very astute comment.

While the service providers are experiencing massive growth they are happy to share. When growth plateaus they will go after every cost reduction, including squeezing out non-value added resellers. Especially those with warning letters from the FDA for making false claims, as noted below.

As a distributor your value add was always making me markets. Once made, those markets are now trivial to take direct unless there is some advantage to having a local take a risk on stock- holding. I have worked in distribution and seen Amazon refuse to deal with the distributor and go direct as soon as they see decent sales, for instance.

Re: A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company

#30
post #16

Amazing - an acquaintance of ours when we lived in Germany a couple of years ago had a similar idea. But she found that telemedicine + prescription drugs (and possibly advertising law) are among the most regulated areas in a country already known for its red tape. I didn't follow up what became of her startup idea, but there's no way she could have ever gotten it off the ground in just two months, like the guy from t…

This was quite a popular business in the US during covid. I had someone prescribe benzos after a 15 minute call where they didn’t seem to be paying attention. I believe they’re shut down down due to legal issues
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