Ozy Media: Fake It Till You Break It with Mara Wilson and Nish Kumar | 68

The Big Flop

Wondery

Society & Culture, Comedy, Business

4.6 • 884 Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2024

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Carlos Watson built Ozy Media on a foundation of lies, fake views, and impersonated executives. From star-studded festivals that never happened to a $40 million con call, Carlos built a multi-million dollar media mirage. Ozy’s story proves that in the world of startups, sometimes the biggest disruptor is reality itself.

Mara Wilson (Matilda, Where Am I Now?) and Nish Kumar (Pod Save the UK, Mash Report) join Misha to invest some of their time into this promising business... flop.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You know what's even better than listening to the big flop?
0:03.6	Listening to the big flop without any ads.
0:06.7	With Wondery Plus, you can enjoy the floppiest of flops, completely uninterrupted.
0:12.0	It's like having a front row seat to the world's biggest train wrecks.
0:15.7	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts and upgrade your listening experience today.
0:27.4	On Groundhog Day, 2021, managers from Goldman Sachs, the very wealthy bank, sit down to a Zoom call. It's a typical
0:41.3	reference meeting to see if a recommended company, Aussie media, is a good investment. If yes,
0:48.0	they'll happily throw in $40 million to see if this news startup gives them that sweet ROI.
0:57.3	But the meeting is delayed.
1:00.5	Alex Piper, the Google executive, who's supposed to talk up Aussie media, is missing.
1:06.8	Alex seems to be running late and requests to shift from a live Zoom call to a simple phone conversation, perfectly normal business stuff.
1:17.7	Alex tells the Goldman Sachs crew that he loves Aussie media, like really loves them.
1:25.4	He stumbles a bit and weirdly refers to Ozzy as us rather than them.
1:32.0	That's fishy, but no deal breaker.
1:35.2	Executives aren't always the most articulate.
1:38.4	Little do the Goldman Sachs folks know that Alex isn't really Alex.
1:48.1	He's a guy named Samir Rao, who's actually the number two at Aussie Media, and he's speaking through a voice modification app. Sitting next to him
1:55.8	is his partner, Carlos Watson, the face of Ozzy. L.O.L. This is technically a bank heist. On the phone,
2:05.4	Alex's voice starts to sound kind of odd. Like it's changing in unnatural ways. Man, there are bad
2:14.0	tech days, and then there are bad tech days.
2:20.3	At least that's what the Goldman Sachs employees assume.
2:23.5	They couldn't begin to imagine they're being conned,
	...

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