Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: Impostors on the Due Diligence Call (Correct)

What?

Here is an incredible story about Ozy, a digital media startup. Ozy was looking to raise a $40 million investment from Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s asset management arm, on the strength of the traffic to its website, newsletters and YouTube videos, and of its “charismatic chief executive” Carlos Watson. As part of its due diligence, Goldman wanted to do a call with YouTube, so Ozy set a call between Goldman and YouTube executive Alex Piper in early February.

On the call, Piper said nice things about Ozy, but “the man’s voice began to sound strange to the Goldman Sachs ...