Ozy Media: After the hype, a very sudden fall

What happened to the buzzy online media brand

Carlos Watson.
(Image credit: Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

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The buzzy online media brand Ozy Media was supposed to be a Silicon Valley "disrupter," said Anna Nicolaou at the Financial Times. It always seemed to have "little to back up its assertions," aside from the magnetism of its high-profile founder, Carlos Watson. Then last week it all came apart. First New York Times media reporter Ben Smith wrote about how an Ozy co-founder tried to impersonate a YouTube executive to trick Goldman Sachs into a $40 million investment. More allegations arose about how the company had inflated viewer metrics and even lied about an investment from the homophonic-named rock star Ozzy Osbourne and his wife, Sharon. As some of Ozy's high-profile backers sought to distance themselves, Watson announced that Ozy was shutting down. But days later he reversed course, saying "this is our Lazarus moment" and insisting Ozy could survive.

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