"At the end of the week, we did suspend operations with a plan to wind down," he said."And as we spent time over the weekend we talked to advertising partners, we talked to some of our readers, some of our viewers, our listeners, our investors.
The initial announcement of a closure appeared to mark a stunning fall for Ozy, which had raised tens of millions in investor funding since its founding in 2013 as a media company aimed at a younger audience with a focus on its YouTube shows.media columnist Ben Smith cited four anonymous sources alleging that Ozy COO Samir Rao impersonated a YouTube executive on a Feb. 2 conference call with banking giant Goldman Sachs, which was looking to invest $40 million in the company.
Executives grew suspicious when the voice sounded digitally altered, and YouTube's security team began an investigation, according to the report. Google, which owns YouTube, contacted the FBI. "It was part of a pattern of deceiving investors, advertisers, the media, all sorts of people, about what was going on with that company," Smith said on MSNBC last week.
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Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »