An online company whose co-founder turned YouTube into an attempt to persuade women has hired a law firm to investigate its activities.
Ozy Media, whose website promises users to “ignore the meeting, change the mindset and light up the idea”, has appointed Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to review the company’s business, it said.
It follows a New York Times report that described the occult and asked Ozy Media’s audience and advertisers. The company’s comments were quoted in the Wall Street Journal.
Samir Rao, co-founder and chief operating officer, is in the midst of a media report that he turned YouTube chief at a press conference with Goldman Sachs, who may be selling money, earlier this year.
Ozy Media has confirmed that this happened, which is said to have been caused by a mental illness.
Rao was asked to take a leave of absence from the board pending the results of the investigation.
Harry Hawks, a former media officer and former chief financial officer of Hearst Television, has been appointed chief of staff at the time.
Katty Kay, a former BBC journalist who left the agency in May to work for Ozy, on Wednesday said she has resigned. “What he said in the New York Times, which shocked me, is shocking and disturbing,” he said.
Carlos Watson, senior, co-founder and face of Ozy Media, earlier this week released a statement he sent to colleagues about the New York Times article.
He also included a quote from Marc Lasry, a member of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team and chairman of Ozy Media, who confirmed that the committee had been informed of the Goldman Sachs conference call and supported his management. “The incident was a traumatic event once,” Lasry said in a statement.
Ozy Media was established in 2013 as a media platform founded by Watson and Rao and has since become podcasts, TV shows and events. Axel Springer from Germany, an independent business partner of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, which is trying to buy a UK supermarket in Morrisons, and Lasry are some of the company’s sellers.
The New York Times doubted Ozy’s claim in 2019 that it reached users in the 50m a month and compared it to what came from Comscore, which is trying to get involved online, which shows very few figures.
Watson responded to a Twitter post that the company has a 26m mail subscription, 25m audience for its podcasts and online TV shows and a “public reach” of 30m. “The growth of Ozy. . . it has become a reality, “the statement said.
Silicon Valley’s largest SV Angel group gave its shares in Ozy yesterday after selling the company’s funds in 2012, one person summed up the matter. SV Angel and its founder Ron Conway declined to comment on the move, which Axios first announced.
Ozy said he was unaware of any investigation after the New York Times reported that Google, which owns YouTube, had warned the Federal Bureau of Investigation at a press conference with Goldman Sachs.
Watson also said on Twitter that he was “heartbroken” by the reports, which he saw as a “stupid hitjob”.
Ozy Media did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rao could not be reached for comment.
Additional reports of Miles Kruppa in San Francisco