The Company Man

PRESENTED BY HUBSPOT

Happy Monday, Future Party. Did you know the crew of the Artemis II mission are carrying iPhones with them? It’s only the second time NASA has allowed astronauts to bring smartphones into space, due to the rigorous process required to approve them (or any commercial devices) for spaceflight. While the iPhones won’t have internet access or the ability to make calls, they can take photos and videos. Expect those to show up in some pretty awesome Apple ads later this year.

A Los Angeles entrepreneur named Matthew Gallagher has built a billion-dollar telehealth startup that sells GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, nearly all of it, by himself… by extensively using AI across every aspect of the business.

Why It Hits: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman once predicted that the day would come when someone would launch a unicorn startup utilizing AI… but it’s amazing that it happened so quickly. (In fact, Altman reportedly wants to meet Gallagher.) Now that there’s a proof of concept, it’s only a matter of time before others follow in Gallagher’s footsteps. The only question is: are we witnessing the future of lean startups, or the dawn of the the startup-slop era?

Behind The Code: Armed with $20,000 and subscriptions to tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Midjourney, Runway, and ElevenLabs, Gallagher launched Medvi. The company generated $401 million in sales last year and is projected to reach $1.8 billion in 2026... its second full year of operation.

Here’s how he did it, per The NYT:

Last Prompt: Medvi isn’t exactly a revolutionary company — it’s similar to Hims & Hers and Ro — but AI has significantly boosted the model’s profit margins. Medvi reported a net profit margin of 16.2% last year, while Hims & Hers posted just 5.5%. That advantage comes down to Gallagher’s understanding of both marketing and AI. Kobie Fuller, an investor at VC firm Upfront Ventures who’s advising Gallagher, said, “Those folks that have those skills, it’s kind of like their superpower.”

Next Quarter: As companies like Meta, Block, and Pinterest lay off employees in favor of AI-first business models, expect more companies to start treating individuals like one-person startups within larger organizations.

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Robotics startup Generalist has designed a new way to collect data for robots, potentially ushering in the industry’s ChatGPT era — an explosion of innovation that could lead to mass adoption.

The Big Picture: In just a few short years, AI has become ubiquitous… which has now put all eyes on robotics. Several companies are competing to become the OpenAI of that space, but training systems to interact with the physical world is a different beast than training for the digital one. If Generalist has made that process simpler, it could be well ahead of the curve.

Between The Lines: Generalist — founded by former robotics experts from Google and Boston Dynamics — has already raised $140 million from firms like Spark Capital, Nvidia’s NVentures, Bezos Expeditions, and Boldstart Ventures.

Here’s what it’s doing with that investment:

Final Move: The ethos behind GEN-1 is a concept called “generalization,” meaning that if a system has enough data across a wide variety of tasks, it can improvise to solve strange problems it encounters while doing nearly anything. For example, when Generalist’s disembodied-arms robot was tasked with stuffing toy plushies into an open plastic bag, it did something remarkable when a toy got stuck halfway in — it grabbed the bag and shook it so the toy slid down. The robot was never trained to do that.

The Future: Expect Generalist to strike a deal soon with a top manufacturer, serving as the first real-world test case of GEN-1 in action.

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more

55.9% of you voted I haven’t watched it and don’t plan to in Friday’s poll: Where do you stand with Euphoria?

“Not my taste in shows.”

“I’m too old for spicy teen dramas.”

“I’ve been impatiently waiting for this season.”

“HBO (Max) continues to make relevant television and has introduced top-flight Gen Z actors such as Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, Hunter Schafer, and Sydney Sweeney to a wider audience.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

🍿 The Writers Guild of America has struck an early, tentative deal with the major Hollywood studios and streamers on a new four-year contract.

🎤 K-pop giant HYBE has tapped Candle Media’s Kevin Mayer as a board member to help drive its westward expansion.

📖 HarperCollins is collabing with AI-powered studio Toonstar to create animated adaptations of some of its novels for YouTube Shorts.

🙃 Hilarious: Elon Musk is requiring that banks involved with SpaceX’s IPO to buy subscriptions to Grok.

🛰️ Amazon is acquiring satellite-communications company Globalstar to supercharge its rivalry with SpaceX’s Starlink.

👀 Meta may cut funding for its own Oversight Board. A sign of the times.

🛢️ Amazon is instituting a fuel surcharge to offset rising oil prices driven by the war in Iran.

💄 L’Oréal closed its $4.6 billion deal for Kering’s beauty business.

👕 F.C. Real Bristol collabed with Carhartt on a capsule of apparel and memorabilia.