Ozy Media, an embattled digital media company, said that it will close down after just days. New York Timescolumn exposed the dubious and possibly criminal behaviour of its executives.
The column by Ben Smith has been published online on Sunday. A steady stream of events followed with Marc Lasry, the board chairman, as well as Katty Kay, the marquee hire. Ex-employees and current employees came together to paint the company. “Potemkin village,”Eugene Robinson, a former employee, said it.
“At Ozy, we have been blessed with a remarkable team of dedicated staff,” the company’s board of directors said in a statement to the Times. “Many of them are world-class journalists and experienced professionals to whom we owe tremendous gratitude and who are wonderful colleagues. It is therefore with the heaviest of hearts that we must announce today that we are closing Ozy’s doors.”
Carlos Watson, an ex-banker and charismatic anchor on MSNBS was the man who founded Ozy. It raised over $90 million in venture financing and was deeply involved in discussions with Goldman Sachs regarding a $40 investment. Those talks were derailed when it was discovered that the company’s chief operating officer had impersonated a YouTube executive during a conference call. Watson blamed it all on a mental health problem.
The pedigree of Ozy’s backers was impressive. They included Laurene Powell Jobs and Marc Lasry, a hedge fund billionaire and co-owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks. Lasry, who was appointed as chairman of the Ozy board early September, resigned earlier this week.