Ozy Media's Lies Made It Go Up in Flames

[neurosis]

Has anyone been following this story at all?  

This sounds a bit nuts to me. I'm wondering how this guy thought that he was going to get away with this in todays world.  


https://gizmodo.com/ozy-medias-lies-made-it-go-up-in-flames-1847788696">The media company announced it was closing on Friday after a week of dramatic revelations.

The weeklong soap opera starring Ozy Media came to a dramatic finish on Friday when the media outlet announced it was shutting down. Ozy's finale unfolded in only five days and was fueled by its own lies and misrepresentations. Nonetheless, one question remains: Why did it take so long for the company's deceptions to reach the front page?

Ozy's downfall began with a wild story in the New York Times on Sept. 26 centered around a strange phone call this past February with Goldman Sachs. At the time, the bank had been speaking to the media company about potentially making a $40 million investment, impressed by its apparent large audience for its website and other products. Most importantly, the outlet reported, the deal hinged on Ozy's "great relationship" with YouTube.

Enter the strange phone call. Goldman wanted to speak to YouTube about Ozy's performance on the platform, so Ozy arranged a conference call between the three parties, including Alex Piper, the head of unscripted programming for the YouTube Originals team. Or rather, that's who Ozy claimed was on the line.

During the call, Piper raved about Ozy's success on YouTube and said that Carlos Watson, the media company's co-founder and CEO, was great. However, the Goldman representatives told the Times that Piper's voice sounded like it had been digitally altered. Sensing that something was up, the bank reached out to Piper via his assistant at YouTube, only to find out that the man had no idea what they were talking about. Someone had been impersonating him on the call between Goldman Sachs and Ozy.

It was later revealed that the impersonator had been Samir Rao, Ozy's co-founder and chief operating officer. Once the jig was up, Watson told Goldman and the Times that Rao's behavior was due to a mental health crisis, adding that the COO had subsequently taken time off work and was now back at Ozy.

[RobertELee]

Funny, they set up a conference call with YouTube to see how well they are doing but don't bother to look at the number of subscribers and average views? That's typically the number one way to rate a page and with only 3.87k subscribers and MOST videos have less than 100 views....

[neurosis]

I can't believe that the company is going to try to stay alive after it came to light that they tried to swindle millions of dollars out of Goldman Sachs.

[Jon@NOWHERE]

I hope this means my inbox will no longer be inundated with their emails.... I am still not sure how I ended up on their mailing list.