Mahbod Moghadam, the controversial, never-boring co-founder of Genius and Everipedia, as effectively as an angel investor, handed away final month at age 41 owing to “complications from a recurring brain tumor,” in accordance to a publish attributed to his household and revealed on Genius.
The startup world seems to have caught wind of his passing simply this weekend, with quite a few tributes arising on the X platform, together with by former Ztoog writer-turned-investor Josh Constine, who as soon as interviewed Moghadam and his founders at Genius when the firm was nonetheless in its relative infancy and referred to as Rap Genius. Wrote Constine: “RIP to Mahbod. A complex, edgy, and at times problematic guy, but also genuinely funny, brilliant, and always unique.”
Moghadam was most just lately residing in Los Angeles, the place, after spending roughly 20 months with the enterprise agency Mucker Capital as an entrepreneur in residence, he was targeted partly on determining schemes to assist creators receives a commission extra instantly for his or her work.
One of these current efforts was HellaDoge, a short-lived social media platform that provided to pay its customers dogecoin for contributing dogecoin-related content material for the profit of the relaxation of the platform’s customers. The ostensible concept was that, in contrast to a Facebook or Twitter, which generate advert income for themselves primarily based on the engagement of their customers, HellaDoge’s customers would profit instantly from their participation.
In an interview 11 months in the past with the on-line media outfit According 2 Hip Hop, Moghadam talked a couple of related concept for a corporation referred to as Communistagram the place, he mentioned, “you’d connect your Venmo and [as a creator] just get paid for using it,” somewhat than depend on Spotify or YouTube to obtain fee.
Moghadam’s curiosity in how folks can and may receives a commission dates again to 2009. After graduating from Yale after which Stanford Law School, he turned a lawyer simply as the financial system was crashing in 2008. In that very same interview from final 12 months, Moghadam mentioned he was “just, like, tiptoeing” round the places of work of the legislation agency the place he landed his first job and praying he wouldn’t be fired.
When the inevitable occurred – Moghadam mentioned the legislation agency “ended up basically just giving us some money to go away” – he used the cash to co-found Rap Genius with two of his Yale associates: Ilan Zechory and Tom Lehman.
Originally, the web site invited customers to annotate and clarify hip-hop lyrics, ultimately changing into so well-known that rappers gravitated to the platform to clarify their very own lyrics – as effectively as to right customers who’d mangled them – together with the rapper Nas, who turned an advisor and one of its first traders.
By the time that Rap Genius graced the stage at Ztoog Disrupt in May 2013, the three had landed funding from Andreessen Horowitz and had been on the verge of rebranding Rap Genius as Genius and increasing its remit.
But Moghadam additionally started attracting consideration to the annotation firm for belligerent habits, each private and non-private. In November 2013, he attributed his poor conduct to a fetal benign mind tumor that was eliminated in emergency surgical procedure. He saved pushing the envelope, nonetheless. Indeed, in 2014, after posting provocative feedback as annotations after a assassin’s manifesto was posted to Genius’s platform, Moghadam resigned at the urging of Lehman, who was the firm’s CEO.
Moghadam later co-founded Everipedia, a now-defunct decentralized, blockchain-based encyclopedia that allowed customers to create pages on any subject as lengthy as the content material was impartial and it was cited.
As it was winding down, he joined Mucker Capital.
Looking again, Moghadam expressed dismay that Genius contributors weren’t paid for serving to to construct out the platform. “The only reason Genius can get by with doing slave labor for lyrics is because people love music so much,” he mentioned throughout final 12 months’s interview with According 2 Hip Hop.
Either approach, the firm fell quick of its ambitions, failing to broaden far past its core viewers of rap followers and unsuccessfully suing Google for copying and posting its lyrics at the prime of search outcomes to seize customers who may in any other case have visited Genius.
In 2021, it bought for $80 million – lower than half of what it raised from enterprise traders – to a holding firm.
While Moghadam by no means reached the identical heights professionally as throughout the early days of Genius, he remained extremely regarded by many of Genius’s most ardent followers, showing on a range of podcasts the place enthusiastic hosts fawned over him.
Moghadam additionally by no means forgave Lehman and was nonetheless attempting to sue the firm as of final 12 months in an try to “squeeze some juice from this rock,” he mentioned in that interview final 12 months.
Slamming the new house owners of Genius, Moghadam had added that “at least the [original] CEO [Lehman] straight up built Genius with his own two hands. He’s a nerd. That’s the only good thing about him.”