Ozy Media: Pivot to Fraud

Scamfluencers

Wondery

Society & Culture

4.1 • 7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 Internet-focused 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.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Primembers, you can listen to Scamplenzer's ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.
0:12.8	Sarah, we've both been laid off from digital media companies in recent history.
0:17.5	Do you have a fantasize about quitting media and starting from scratch in a whole new career?
0:22.2	Like, maybe we could become welders.
0:24.9	I don't actually fantasize about it because I have no other skills.
0:30.0	So there's really nothing to fantasize about.
0:32.8	Like, I can't learn how to do anything new or can I do anything else.
0:36.8	Right.
0:37.5	Well, today's episode is a doozy.
0:39.4	It's all about the unbelievable hubris of the 2010s media boom.
0:43.4	And a guy who decided that he had to be at the center of it.
0:47.6	And no, I'm not talking about my former boss or your former boss or any of our bosses.
0:53.2	I can't wait to take you through this episode.
0:55.3	You're gonna get so mad.
1:00.1	It's a foggy morning in Los Angeles in February 2021.
1:04.2	Alex Piper is working from home.
1:06.0	He's a 40-something-year-old white guy with dark eyes and salt and pepper hair.
1:10.3	And he's also the head of unscripted programming at YouTube.
1:13.3	This morning, his assistant is on the phone, letting him know that someone at Goldman Sachs is on the line.
1:18.8	They say they want to clarify some comments that Alex made about Aussie media in a meeting
1:23.5	earlier that day. Sarah, do you remember Aussie media?
1:27.3	Yes. I don't know how you could be a writer online and not have heard of Aussie media.
	...

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