7 ms·

So, one of Ozy's top two executives impersonated a senior YouTube executive, apparently using voice-modification technology, to answer questions in a due dilige

by cs702 5y ago

So, one of Ozy's top two executives impersonated a senior YouTube executive, apparently using voice-modification technology, to answer questions in a due diligence phone call initiated by Goldman Sachs, who was considering investing $40M in the company. First of all, wow. That takes a lot -- a lot -- of chutzpah. And a lot of arrogance too. Second, Ozy's board of directors described this reckless con as a "mistake." Apparently the impersonator is still at Ozy. (Wait... What?) Third, I'm reminded of the later stages of the residential mortgage market bubble, in which the zeitgeist was captured by the phrase "extend and pretend." The zeitgeist now may be best described as "fake it and pretend." Again, wow.

ryandrake 5y ago
Shades of Theranos with this one. It's so sad that hard working, smart technologists struggle through and at best maybe make a decent living at a good tech company, yet smooth-talking phonies like these guys and Elizabeth Holmes and Adam Neumann just get money thrown at them and can never fail. Why? Because they wear turtlenecks and have the right prestigious college names on their resume?
- dannylandau 5y ago
  A bit off topic, but why do people conflate Elizabeth Holmes with Adam Neumann (and Travis Kalanick), completely different issues, one is fraud and the other is just a failed IPO that included some hyperbole, nothing more. No comparison.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Adam Neumann is not Elizabeth Holmes, but there is more to his story than "a failed IPO that included some hyperbole".
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Arguably Neumann was a fraud, he just got away with it. WeWork’s books were thoroughly cooked, and he managed to extract an inappropriate amount of wealth from it via his role, up to and including making the company lease land from him, and (attempting) to force the company to license its own brand from him personally.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    I lump them together because their primary skills are charm and persuasion rather than hands-on subject matter expertise. To me, it doesn't matter whether the end result turns out to be fraud or incompetence, they get ahead of honesty and competence by being phony smooth-talking salesmen. Like a role playing character that puts all their skill points into "Charisma" and nothing else. And it's not just high profile entrepreneurs. Everyone knows people like this, they're all around us, climbing the corporate ladder. Mediocre performers, but boy can they "look the part", flash a big gorgeous smile, and talk in ways that sound pleasing to leadership but are ultimately empty words.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      > Mediocre performers, but boy can they "look the part", flash a big gorgeous smile, and talk in ways that sound pleasing to leadership but are ultimately empty words. Coincidentally, this also characterizes Ozy's content, which is unbelievably vapid and safe, but delivered with an unearned tone of gravitas. At least TED(x) talks were sometimes good because of the sheer number of them. Ozy content is never good.
      - chiefgeek 5y ago
        Right! And go ahead and try to unsubscribe! Impossible.
    - soheil 5y ago
      Obligatory question: why don’t you do that if it’s so easy? My suspicion is you judge a book by its cover, how do you know it’s not just how they treat others ie. with a big smile that makes them succeed, but also the effort they put in behind the scenes when you’re not looking? Does putting up a great face necessarily mean the content must be garbage and the whole package cannot be just as great?
      - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
        I don't think anyone is saying it's easy - the complaint seems to more be that it creates no value (unlike those hard working technologists).
  - CPLX 5y ago
    There were a few things in the WeWork story that were way closer to the fraud line than you're implying here including circular revenue and self-dealing.
  - sharadov 5y ago
    Neumann was a complete conman, and he's the smarter one because he got away with a lot of money , while Holmes is a psychopath who hopefully will end up with a long prison sentence.
    - ativzzz 5y ago
      I'm so jaded that I think she will get off scott free
      - ryandrake 5y ago
        Of course! She will serve no prison time, and for the rest of her life remain richer than any of us are here on HN. Furthermore, she will go on to found other companies and have no trouble funding them. I could even see a successful political future with her prestigious contacts in government. Easiest predictions I’ve ever made.
      - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
        Nah, she made a lot of proud people look stupid. I predict she'll get the Shkreli treatment.
        hellbannedguy 5y ago
        Not now, she's already blaming that little guy who followed her around like a puppy dog. That whole "woke" thing will work to her advantage. I predict a no federal jail, or a few months, like a Martha Stewart. She will write her bio. She will be on the talk circuit the minute the trial is over, and talk about being a victim. I don't think she will wear the black turtleneck ever. My wish is they start to fining white collar criminals much more, especially the wealthy ones. Federal prison time for wealthy criminals seems like a vacation. Get them where they worship---their money. Every time I hear the fine, I cringe. Is that all? I would like to see all societal fees/fines tied to assets. She shouldn't feel able to capitalize on the crime either. Then again I have never understood the logic of making a poor man pay the same fine, as the poor man.
  - danrocks 5y ago
    Did you miss the part where he trademarked company property and tried to sell it back to the company? Or the part that he acquired buildings and leased them to WeWork at inflated prices? There's an argument her for Adam Neumann to be actually WORSE than Elizabeth Holmes.
  - NoboruWataya 5y ago
    It takes a while for fraud to come to light. I'm not for a second suggesting Neumann is a fraud, but I would guess that the people who conflate him with Holmes think (rightly or wrongly) that the WeWork saga had at least some high-level hallmarks of fraud.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  > hard working, smart technologists struggle through and at best maybe make a decent living at a good tech company Woah woah woah. If we want to claim that any tech salary is hard working and struggling, then I suggest you spend a summer digging ditches for the DOT, coal mining, or working in a factory. In the US, programmers make about 2.5x the median salary (2019) [0]. The entire US median in 2019 was $35,000. So remember to look down for perspective too, not just up. [0] https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central.html https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central.html https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/computer-programmer/salary https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/computer-programm...
  - TrevorJ 5y ago
    Implying that people can't be hard working because "look, there's this other job that seems like it's harder" is just... I don't even know what. As for the struggling part, if you control for cost of living the picture is going to look a lot different.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      Incidence rates (per 100 full-time worker equivalents) of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types, cases with days away from work, 2019 [0] Fishing? 3.0 Bituminous coal underground mining? 3.0 Framing contractors? 4.5 Soft drink manufacturing? 4.8 Leather and hide tanning and finishing? 7.1 Computer systems design and related services? 0.1 Fatal injury rates fall along the same lines [1], and programmers commit suicide at less than 1/2 the rate of high risk occupations [2]. There's a difference between going home mentally exhausted, and being unable to go into work because your body is that injured. Or to put it another way: if you were offered your equivalent salary, would you go fish Alaskan king crab or join a logging crew tomorrow? [0] https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/summ1_00.htm https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/summ1_00.htm (Table 1) https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/case/cd_r4_2019.htm https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/case/cd_r4_2019.htm (Table R4) [1] https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0332.htm https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0332.htm (Table A-5, Fatal incident counts by occupation) https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-injuries/civilian-occupations-with-high-fatal-work-injury-rates.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju... (Occupations with the highest rates) [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6903a1-H.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6903a1-H.pdf (Suicide Rates by Industry and Occupation, 2016)
paxys 5y ago
Ozy, their investors/backers and surprisingly Goldman themselves all seemed to have gotten over the incident a little too casually. Google was the one who raised up a storm and got the FBI involved, despite not even really being part of the whole situation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- addingnumbers 5y ago
  Not part? Wasn't it one of their execs who was impersonated?
Lazare 5y ago
Note that according to the story, the fake email address was provided by the CEO, which was then used to arrange a call between Goldman and the COO/cofounder, pretending to be a YouTube exec. At first glance, that seems to implicate both the CEO and the COO/cofounder in the fraud. Even if you buy the story that the COO was experiencing a mental break, I wonder what the CEO's excuse was? Must be pretty good, since his board apparently was fine with it...somehow. (One rather suspects the FBI and the SEC will be less impressed.)
- bambax 5y ago
  Of course the CEO is in on it. He probably set it up in the first place. How did he not recognize his own COO on the call?! Even with the voice "digitally altered" (?) it should be trivial to recognize someone you work with every single day. And if the CEO had been in contact with the YouTube person before he also, at least, should have understood that this was not him. If you search for the CEO's name on Google Images, you get a wall of photos with the exact same broad, fake smile. What a character. It's amazing what some people can get away with.
- silexia 5y ago
  Both the CEO and CFO had to have been involved. This is simply criminal fraud and hopefully both individuals are prosecuted for it. My guess is the board is made up of investors who don't want to see their money disappear when the leadership gets criminal convictions. That is why they brushed it under the rug.
devnull3 5y ago
And the hypocrisy of companies to make employees read & sign "code-of-conduct and ethics" and shitty training sessions on integrity and values. If execs and top leadership simply walked the talk it will do far greater good.

by cs702 5y ago

ryandrake 5y ago

Shades of Theranos with this one. It's so sad that hard working, smart technologists struggle through and at best maybe make a decent living at a good tech company, yet smooth-talking phonies like these guys and Elizabeth Holmes and Adam Neumann just get money thrown at them and can never fail. Why? Because they wear turtlenecks and have the right prestigious college names on their resume?

dannylandau 5y ago
A bit off topic, but why do people conflate Elizabeth Holmes with Adam Neumann (and Travis Kalanick), completely different issues, one is fraud and the other is just a failed IPO that included some hyperbole, nothing more. No comparison.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  Adam Neumann is not Elizabeth Holmes, but there is more to his story than "a failed IPO that included some hyperbole".
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Arguably Neumann was a fraud, he just got away with it. WeWork’s books were thoroughly cooked, and he managed to extract an inappropriate amount of wealth from it via his role, up to and including making the company lease land from him, and (attempting) to force the company to license its own brand from him personally.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  I lump them together because their primary skills are charm and persuasion rather than hands-on subject matter expertise. To me, it doesn't matter whether the end result turns out to be fraud or incompetence, they get ahead of honesty and competence by being phony smooth-talking salesmen. Like a role playing character that puts all their skill points into "Charisma" and nothing else. And it's not just high profile entrepreneurs. Everyone knows people like this, they're all around us, climbing the corporate ladder. Mediocre performers, but boy can they "look the part", flash a big gorgeous smile, and talk in ways that sound pleasing to leadership but are ultimately empty words.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    > Mediocre performers, but boy can they "look the part", flash a big gorgeous smile, and talk in ways that sound pleasing to leadership but are ultimately empty words. Coincidentally, this also characterizes Ozy's content, which is unbelievably vapid and safe, but delivered with an unearned tone of gravitas. At least TED(x) talks were sometimes good because of the sheer number of them. Ozy content is never good.
    - chiefgeek 5y ago
      Right! And go ahead and try to unsubscribe! Impossible.
  - soheil 5y ago
    Obligatory question: why don’t you do that if it’s so easy? My suspicion is you judge a book by its cover, how do you know it’s not just how they treat others ie. with a big smile that makes them succeed, but also the effort they put in behind the scenes when you’re not looking? Does putting up a great face necessarily mean the content must be garbage and the whole package cannot be just as great?
    - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
      I don't think anyone is saying it's easy - the complaint seems to more be that it creates no value (unlike those hard working technologists).
- CPLX 5y ago
  There were a few things in the WeWork story that were way closer to the fraud line than you're implying here including circular revenue and self-dealing.
- sharadov 5y ago
  Neumann was a complete conman, and he's the smarter one because he got away with a lot of money , while Holmes is a psychopath who hopefully will end up with a long prison sentence.
  - ativzzz 5y ago
    I'm so jaded that I think she will get off scott free
    - ryandrake 5y ago
      Of course! She will serve no prison time, and for the rest of her life remain richer than any of us are here on HN. Furthermore, she will go on to found other companies and have no trouble funding them. I could even see a successful political future with her prestigious contacts in government. Easiest predictions I’ve ever made.
    - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
      Nah, she made a lot of proud people look stupid. I predict she'll get the Shkreli treatment.
      - hellbannedguy 5y ago
        Not now, she's already blaming that little guy who followed her around like a puppy dog. That whole "woke" thing will work to her advantage. I predict a no federal jail, or a few months, like a Martha Stewart. She will write her bio. She will be on the talk circuit the minute the trial is over, and talk about being a victim. I don't think she will wear the black turtleneck ever. My wish is they start to fining white collar criminals much more, especially the wealthy ones. Federal prison time for wealthy criminals seems like a vacation. Get them where they worship---their money. Every time I hear the fine, I cringe. Is that all? I would like to see all societal fees/fines tied to assets. She shouldn't feel able to capitalize on the crime either. Then again I have never understood the logic of making a poor man pay the same fine, as the poor man.
- danrocks 5y ago
  Did you miss the part where he trademarked company property and tried to sell it back to the company? Or the part that he acquired buildings and leased them to WeWork at inflated prices? There's an argument her for Adam Neumann to be actually WORSE than Elizabeth Holmes.
- NoboruWataya 5y ago
  It takes a while for fraud to come to light. I'm not for a second suggesting Neumann is a fraud, but I would guess that the people who conflate him with Holmes think (rightly or wrongly) that the WeWork saga had at least some high-level hallmarks of fraud.
ethbr0 5y ago
> hard working, smart technologists struggle through and at best maybe make a decent living at a good tech company Woah woah woah. If we want to claim that any tech salary is hard working and struggling, then I suggest you spend a summer digging ditches for the DOT, coal mining, or working in a factory. In the US, programmers make about 2.5x the median salary (2019) [0]. The entire US median in 2019 was $35,000. So remember to look down for perspective too, not just up. [0] https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central.html https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central.html https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/computer-programmer/salary https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/computer-programm...
- TrevorJ 5y ago
  Implying that people can't be hard working because "look, there's this other job that seems like it's harder" is just... I don't even know what. As for the struggling part, if you control for cost of living the picture is going to look a lot different.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Incidence rates (per 100 full-time worker equivalents) of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types, cases with days away from work, 2019 [0] Fishing? 3.0 Bituminous coal underground mining? 3.0 Framing contractors? 4.5 Soft drink manufacturing? 4.8 Leather and hide tanning and finishing? 7.1 Computer systems design and related services? 0.1 Fatal injury rates fall along the same lines [1], and programmers commit suicide at less than 1/2 the rate of high risk occupations [2]. There's a difference between going home mentally exhausted, and being unable to go into work because your body is that injured. Or to put it another way: if you were offered your equivalent salary, would you go fish Alaskan king crab or join a logging crew tomorrow? [0] https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/summ1_00.htm https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/summ1_00.htm (Table 1) https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/case/cd_r4_2019.htm https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/case/cd_r4_2019.htm (Table R4) [1] https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0332.htm https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0332.htm (Table A-5, Fatal incident counts by occupation) https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-injuries/civilian-occupations-with-high-fatal-work-injury-rates.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju... (Occupations with the highest rates) [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6903a1-H.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6903a1-H.pdf (Suicide Rates by Industry and Occupation, 2016)

paxys 5y ago

Ozy, their investors/backers and surprisingly Goldman themselves all seemed to have gotten over the incident a little too casually. Google was the one who raised up a storm and got the FBI involved, despite not even really being part of the whole situation.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
addingnumbers 5y ago
Not part? Wasn't it one of their execs who was impersonated?

Lazare 5y ago

Note that according to the story, the fake email address was provided by the CEO, which was then used to arrange a call between Goldman and the COO/cofounder, pretending to be a YouTube exec. At first glance, that seems to implicate both the CEO and the COO/cofounder in the fraud. Even if you buy the story that the COO was experiencing a mental break, I wonder what the CEO's excuse was? Must be pretty good, since his board apparently was fine with it...somehow. (One rather suspects the FBI and the SEC will be less impressed.)

bambax 5y ago
Of course the CEO is in on it. He probably set it up in the first place. How did he not recognize his own COO on the call?! Even with the voice "digitally altered" (?) it should be trivial to recognize someone you work with every single day. And if the CEO had been in contact with the YouTube person before he also, at least, should have understood that this was not him. If you search for the CEO's name on Google Images, you get a wall of photos with the exact same broad, fake smile. What a character. It's amazing what some people can get away with.
silexia 5y ago
Both the CEO and CFO had to have been involved. This is simply criminal fraud and hopefully both individuals are prosecuted for it. My guess is the board is made up of investors who don't want to see their money disappear when the leadership gets criminal convictions. That is why they brushed it under the rug.

devnull3 5y ago

And the hypocrisy of companies to make employees read & sign "code-of-conduct and ethics" and shitty training sessions on integrity and values. If execs and top leadership simply walked the talk it will do far greater good.