Ozy Media founder impersonated YouTube exec in call to Goldman Sachs
The co-founder of Ozy Media allegedly impersonated a YouTube executive on a $40m (£29.2) investor call to Goldman Sachs.
In February, four Goldman Sachs investors scheduled a call with Ozy founder Carlos Watson, who briefly worked for the bank earlier in this career, and Alex Piper, the head of programming at YouTube Originals, the New York Times first reported.
Piper was supposed to testify about the success of Ozy Media in order to close a $40m investment deal with the bank. Watson had told investors that Ozy’s videos had amassed millions of views on the video sharing platform.
Just before the video call was due to take pace Piper said he was having technical difficulties and suggested holding the meeting via conference call instead. While Piper gave an effusive review of the company and its performance the prospective investors noticed something strange about Piper’s voice which sounded as if it had been digitally altered.
The Goldman Sachs team later reached out to Piper’s assistant who said he had not taken part in the phone call, signalling that an imposter had attended the meeting.
YouTube and Goldman Sachs launched an investigation into the incident at which point Carlos Watson admitted that Samir Rao, Ozy’s co-founder and chief operating officer, had pretended to be Piper. According to Watson, Rao had suffered a mental breakdown which provoked the incident.
“Samir is a valued colleague and a close friend,” said Watson, in comments to the New York Times. “I’m proud that we stood by him while he struggled, and we’re all glad to see him now thriving again.”
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