Mahbod Moghadam

Mahbod Moghadam (born November 17, 1982) is an American internet entrepreneur. In 2009 he and Tom Lehman co-founded Rap Genius (now Genius), a website on which users can submit annotations and interpretations of song lyrics and other content. In 2015 he co-founded Everipedia, a wiki-based online encyclopedia, where he worked as the Chief Community Officer for several years. He is now an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the venture capital firm Mucker Capital.

Mahbod Moghadam
Mahbod Moghadam at TechCrunch Disrupt New York 2013
Born (1982-11-17) November 17, 1982
NationalityAmerican
Alma materYale University (BA)
Stanford Law School (JD)
OccupationInternet entrepreneur
EmployerEveripedia (2015–2019)
Genius (2009–2014)

Personal life and education

Moghadam graduated from Yale University in 2004 with a major in History and International Studies. In 2005, he went to France on a Fulbright scholarship. When he returned in 2005, he enrolled at Stanford Law School, and graduated in 2008 with a J.D.[1]

Moghadam is known for his "outlandish" personality and behavior.[2][3][4] In 2013 he received media attention for telling Mark Zuckerberg in an interview and Warren Buffett in a tweet to "suck [his] dick", and for his later public apology to them during an onstage appearance at the TechCrunch Disrupt New York conference.[5][6][7][8] He later attributed some of his behavior to a benign brain tumor that was discovered and removed in 2013.[7] In September 2018, Moghadam had an epileptic seizure attributable to a second brain tumor, and had brain surgery later that month.[9]

In August 2018, Moghadam appeared as a guest on Sacha Baron Cohen's television series Who is America?, in which Cohen adopted various disguises and personas to capture his guests behaving in embarrassing ways.[10] Believing he was doing a photoshoot with a "playboy photographer" named Gio, Moghadam is shown making the Bloods gang sign and imitating shooting a gun when Cohen asks him to "do something like a black guy." Later Cohen pads Moghadam's crotch and has him pose in front of a green screen so he could later be photoshopped into scenes as though he is feeding starving children.[4][11][12]

Career

After graduating from law school in 2008, Moghadam became an attorney at the law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf.[1] In 2009, many law offices who were trying to endure the Great Recession placed junior employees on "deferral", paying them a partial salary to take time off and encouraging them to intern at other companies. While on deferral from Dewey & LeBoeuf, Moghadam was hired as an intern at Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Nebraska. However, shortly before departing for his internship, the internship offer was rescinded and he was fired by Dewey & LeBeouf when a Berkshire Hathaway employee discovered a satirical memo he had written and published on his blog, addressed to "Ballstate Insurance Company" (a reference to the Allstate insurance company, which was a client of Dewey & LeBoeuf).[13][14]

In August 2009, Moghadam and Tom Lehman founded Rap Genius, a website that initially allowed users to annotate and interpret song lyrics.[15][16] Moghadam was included in the 2013 Forbes 30 Under 30 list along with the other Rap Genius cofounders.[15] In 2014, Rap Genius rebranded to Genius and expanded to support annotations for news stories, poetry, and other documents.[17] Moghadam resigned or was fired from Genius that same year after receiving negative media attention when he used Genius to add annotations to the manifesto written by the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings, which he described as "beautifully written".[18][19][20] His comments were described by CNN as "tasteless and creepy",[18] and Genius co-founder Lehman said in a statement that the annotations "not only didn't attempt to enhance anyone's understanding of the text, but went beyond that into gleeful insensitivity and misogyny."[4][21][22]

In 2015, Moghadam met Sam Kazemian and joined him as co-founder and Chief Community Officer of Everipedia, a wiki-based online encyclopedia.[14][23][24][25] Everipedia raised $30M from Galaxy Digital to build a competitor of Wikipedia on the EOS blockchain. The investment came together through a conversation between Moghadam and Bitcoin Foundation chairman Brock Pierce.[14] After leaving Everipedia, Moghadam began working as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the venture capital firm Mucker Capital.[26]

References
  1. Bruno, Kohler (January 22, 2015). "The Genius out in the cold". The Yale Herald. Archived from the original on February 6, 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  2. Gayomali, Chris (May 27, 2014). "Rap Genius's Mahbod Moghadam Resigns After Annotating Santa Barbara Killer's Manifesto With Awful Comments". Fast Company. Retrieved March 23, 2019.
  3. Colburn, Randall (August 13, 2018). "Sacha Baron Cohen delivers the laughs, but overplays his hand on an uneven Who Is America?". The A.V. Club. Retrieved March 23, 2019.
  4. Miller, Matt (August 13, 2018). "Sacha Baron Cohen Humiliated the Tech Bro Founder of Rap Genius". Esquire. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  5. Teicher, Jordan (February 22, 2013). "What Does Rap Genius Have Against Warren Buffett?". Slate Magazine. Retrieved March 23, 2019.
  6. Kumparak, Greg (May 1, 2013). "Rap Genius' Co-Founder Apologizes To Zuck (Then Says They'll Be Bigger Than Facebook)". TechCrunch. Retrieved March 23, 2019.
  7. Beaumont-Thomas, Ben (November 15, 2013). "RapGenius co-founder says brain tumour made him attack Mark Zuckerberg". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 23, 2019.
  8. Lee, Timothy B. (December 27, 2013). "It's not just Google: The many feuds of Rap Genius". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 23, 2019.
  9. Geroulis, Tasha (October 15, 2018). "Second Brain Tumor Inspires Mahbod Moghadam to Change Corporate Philosophy". Jewish Journal. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  10. Heritage, Stuart (August 28, 2018). "Who is America?: Why Sacha Baron Cohen's comedy failed to land a punch". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 23, 2019.
  11. Swartz, Anna (August 13, 2018). "Who got fooled on episode 5 of 'Who Is America?' and what did they say about it?". Mic. Retrieved March 23, 2019.
  12. Lynch, John (August 27, 2018). "All the notable people and politicians Sacha Baron Cohen 'duped' this season on 'Who Is America?'". Business Insider. Retrieved March 23, 2019.
  13. Rubino, Kathryn (December 12, 2016). "Controversial Former Biglaw Attorney Relaunches His Career As Internet Mogul". Above the Law. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  14. Schwartz, Zachary (February 7, 2019). "Blockchain Wikipedia is a dish best served cold". Engadget. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  15. "Mahbod Moghadam, Ilan Zechory, Tom Lehman". Forbes. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  16. "Rap Genius Explains Why Worse is Better". FirstRound.com. Archived from the original on September 17, 2017.
  17. Brustein, Joshua (November 9, 2012). "Yale Graduates Seek a Degree in Hip-Hop". The New York Times. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  18. Gross, Doug (May 27, 2014). "Tech exec fired for comments about California rampage". CNN. Retrieved July 10, 2020.
  19. Van Dyke, Michelle Broder (May 26, 2014). "Rap Genius Co-Founder Resigns After Writing Offensive Comments On Elliot Rodger's Manifesto". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved July 10, 2020.
  20. Swisher, Kara (May 26, 2014). "Rap Genius Co-Founder Moghadam Fired Over Tasteless Comments on Santa Barbara Shooting". Vox. Retrieved July 10, 2020.
  21. Swisher, Kara (May 26, 2014). "Rap Genius Co-Founder Moghadam Fired Over Tasteless Comments on Santa Barbara Shooting". Recode. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  22. Levy, Karyne (May 26, 2014). "Rap Genius' Cofounder Has Been Fired After Comments About California Shooter". Business Insider. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  23. Bowman, Bryan (December 7, 2016). "From UMass to Silicon Valley: An interview with 'Everipedia' founders". Amherst Wire. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  24. Lindström, Emil (December 16, 2015). "Emil möter: Theodor Forselius" [Emil meets: Theodor Forselius]. Emil Lindström (in Swedish). Emil Lindström. Archived from the original on January 7, 2018. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  25. Thompson, Patrick (November 24, 2018). "Rap Genius co-founder Mahbod Moghadam weighs in on Everipedia, the bear market, and more". Timestamp Magazine. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  26. Moghadam, Mahbod (February 20, 2020). "Everipedia & Genius Co-Founder Mahbod Moghadam shares bold Bitcoin and crypto predictions for 2020 and beyond" (Interview).
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