[ad_1]
The right people leave the right jobs to join Ozy Media. They believed in his mission, his leadership and his potential for wealth creation. Investors cut big, bona fide checks. They have all been betrayed.
The big picture: A horde of sources have described a pattern of bad behavior, well beyond the failed fraud that was first reported by the NY Times on Sunday.
What happened yesterday: Do you have a minute?
Marc Lasry has left the board of directors of Ozy Media, stating: “I think to move forward, Ozy requires experience in areas like crisis management and investigations, where I have no particular expertise.
- It was just weeks after Lasry took over as president, and just days after he initially said an investigation was unnecessary.
- Axios learned that Lasry had only invested $ 1 million of his own money in what we were told to be a $ 35 million Series C round in 2019. At the time, CEO Carlos Watson had qualified Lasry as lead investor in this round.
Watson in 2019 also said CNBC that Sharon and Ozzy Osborne had invested in his company. Sharon now says that never happened, adding, “This guy is the biggest con man I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Stories published Thursday by Bloomberg and CNN describe Watson as an erratic leader who used unprofessional practices to micromanage his staff. Oh, and some advertisers are running away.
But wait, there’s more, by new Axios reporting:
- Just months after that $ 35 million round of funding (for which there is no SEC filing), Ozy implemented 19% pay cuts, citing the pandemic, according to multiple sources .
- Eugene Robinson, editor-in-chief of Ozy and one of his first recruits, said he was fired for posting a story on his personal sub-stack, even though he had received approval from a editor-in-chief (as verified via a screenshot shared with Axios). Watson reportedly told Robinson, “You were wrong to do it and they were wrong to tell you to do it.”
- Robinson says he’s free to speak with reporters because his separation negotiations, which allegedly included an NDA, collapsed after Ozy insisted he delete a negative Glassdoor review the company believed it posted (Robinson denies that it is his).
- Other former employees tell Axios that management encouraged them to write positive reviews on Glassdoor.
- German publisher Axel Springer, one of Ozy’s early investors, told Axios he gave up his right to a board seat and voting rights after investing just $ 300,000 in the Series C round. But Ozy continued to list Axel Springer’s representative as an active administrator in a July 2021 case with the State of Florida.
- Several sources note Watson’s penchant for Sunday meetings and say he often tense employees for hours on Sunday. Some say Watson made it very difficult to leave the company and would continue to call after they left.
- People may be inclined to disparage their ex-employers, but what we’re getting here is a consistent story.
- Axios reached out to a current member of Ozy’s accounting department for clarification on the revenue figures the company initially shared with us, but hung up.
The bottom line: All we know for sure about Ozy is that there is bad news to come.
Go further: Ozy loses early investor
[ad_2]
Source link