Google CEO denies offering to buy startup for $600 million that then caught fire

Google considered hiring Watson for a high-level chief information officer position in 2021 and investing $25 million in Ozy as a compromise to lure him away, Pichai told jurors.

“Mr. Watson was a vital part of Ozy Media and we were considering investing in the company to ease the transition,” he explained.

But “have you ever offered to buy Ozy Media for $600 million?” » asked prosecutor Dylan Stern.

“No,” replied Pichai, who runs Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc.

He said he was introduced to Watson at a conference and then during a video interview for a possible job at Google, interacting with the media. Neither the hiring nor the $25 million investment ultimately took place.

According to prosecutors, Watson later told another potential investor that Pichai himself had proposed a nine-figure offer to buy Ozy. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company produced television shows, podcasts and a festival of music and ideas before collapsing in fall 2021 amid questions over whether it had blatantly distorted its audience, its agreements and its finances.

Shannon Frison, an attorney for Ozy Media, said in an emailed statement Friday that it was “absolutely false” that Watson told anyone that Google had made a $600 million offer.

“He never had such a conversation with Google and never told anyone he did it,” Frison said.

Watson and Ozy Media have pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to commit fraud. He said he built a solid, real business, didn’t defraud anyone, and was singled out for prosecution when he made, at most, entrepreneurial “mistakes.”

Defense attorneys blamed any misrepresentation on Ozy co-founder Samir Rao, saying he falsely implicated Watson in hopes of avoiding prison himself. Rao pleaded guilty to identity theft and conspiracy to commit fraud, and is awaiting sentencing.

He testified earlier in the trial that his “moral compass” had been clouded by ambition, desperation to keep the business going and Carlos’ “deep conviction that failure was not an option and that we had to do whatever it took.”

Among other deceptions, Rao infamously posed as a YouTube executive – even using a phone app to disguise his voice – in order to defend Ozy to Goldman Sachs investment bankers during a February 2021 call.

“It was one of the most disturbing calls I have ever received in my career,” Goldman director Hillel Moerman testified Friday, calling the episode “a surreal experience.”

Rao testified that he used the phone to support a false claim that YouTube was paying for Watson’s eponymous talk show. Rao said Watson was with him during the call, texting him for advice on what to say: “I’m a big fan of Carlos, Samir and the show,” read one text that was shown to jurors.

Defense attorney Ronald Sullivan Jr. said Watson entered the room during the call, realized “a real train wreck” was taking place and tried to convince Rao to end the conversation.

On the other hand, Moerman thought the alleged YouTube executive’s voice sounded obviously “fake,” among other clues that made Goldman’s bankers suspicious, he recalled Friday.

One of his colleagues quickly called the current head of YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet. The ruse was revealed. Just like the potential of an investment at Goldman.

“We were lied to,” Moerman told the jury in Brooklyn federal court.

Goldman Sachs continued to advertise with Ozy after the episode, according to Rao’s testimony.

Watson told the Goldman and Ozy board that Rao had suffered a mental health crisis. Rao told jurors he was taking antidepressants at the time but was not taking a psychiatric break.

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