ENCORE: Ozy Media: Pivot to Fraud | 206

Scamfluencers

Audible

Society & Culture

4.1 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2026

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We’ll be back in two weeks with brand new episodes. In the meantime, here’s one of our favorite episodes, about a wannabe media magnate whose big vision ran on even bigger lies.

Carlos Watson is a Stanford Law School graduate with big Silicon Valley connections and even bigger dreams. When he pitches investors on his idea for a Millennial-focused news website called Ozy Media, it seems like a sure bet. It’s the early 2010s, and online media start-ups have generated tons of buzz – and more importantly, tons of clicks. But Carlos doesn't actually know what he’s doing. And when Ozy fails to attract the readers he’s promised his investors, he decides to ditch the business of truth-telling and go rogue.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of scam influencers ad-free right now. Join Audible
0:05.8	today by downloading the Audible app. We'll be back in two weeks with an all-new episode of
0:11.2	scam influencers, but today we're revisiting the spectacular rise and even more spectacular
0:17.1	fall, a former political pundit and wannabe media sion, Carlos Watson.
0:23.8	That's right, we're talking about Aussie media, a scrappy media startup that was so desperate to
0:29.1	succeed, they juiced their views and scanned their investors, business partners, and customers.
0:35.5	Carlos was convicted in federal court and sentenced to nearly 10 years in
0:39.3	prison for fraud. He was literally on his way to report to a federal correctional institution
0:44.2	in California last year when everything changed. Just hours before he was set to begin serving
0:50.0	his sentence, Carlos was pardoned by President Trump. Some people get all the luck, you know?
0:56.4	A presidential pardon?
0:58.4	Why? Why?
1:00.4	Anyway, good for him.
1:02.3	Couldn't happen to a nicer guy, I think.
1:05.4	In a statement, Carlos thanked the president for what he called correcting a, quote, grave injustice.
1:12.4	He also criticized the federal judge who sentenced him as, quote, conflicted and unethical.
1:18.2	And the clemency didn't just apply to Carlos personally.
1:21.2	The president's actions also wiped out the penalties imposed on Aussie media.
1:25.6	It's like it never happened at all and nobody was affected by it any way.
1:31.8	Yeah, it is like that.
1:35.2	Well, it's a last-minute pivot worthy of the story itself.
1:38.8	So, with this stunning update in mind, we're revisiting our episode on Carlos Watson,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Audible, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Audible and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.