How Hims Became the King of Knockoff Weight-Loss Drugs

George’s Donuts & Merriment is the kind of spot locals line up outside on the weekend, where you can order a flight of “fried-to-order” sugar-dusted doughnut holes served with Valrhona chocolate fudge sauce. On this sunny morning in March, the French bistro-style cafe in San Francisco’s West Portal neighborhood is bustling with stroller-pushing moms eyeing the glass case filled with treats including strawberry Champagne brioche and buttermilk old-fashioned cake doughnuts. This hedonist destination also happens to be the co-creation of Andrew Dudum, chief executive officer of the telehealth company Hims & Hers Health Inc., which for more than a year has been selling GLP-1s, America’s most coveted weight-loss drugs.

Dudum—a fit, meticulously groomed 37-year-old—is sitting at the white marble counter wearing a corduroy baseball cap, a quilted jacket and off-white Converse sneakers, digging into a cottage cheese parfait while playing with ChatGPT on his phone. He’s been asking the app questions such as “Can I leave chicken out for three hours?” and “Viking stock price analysis”—Viking Therapeutics Inc. is a San Diego-based company developing its own weight-loss shots. Dudum, himself a GLP-1 microdoser (according to Silicon Valley longevity devotees, the drugs can potentially increase your lifespan), has also loaded his labs into ChatGPT, asking it for health advice so he can become “super optimized.” He and his wife, Lea, opened George’s in January. Turns out it’s a lot harder to make money from doughnuts than from weight-loss drugs. “Thank God we have other jobs,” he says.