Mahbod Moghadam is an American internet
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
. In 2009 he, Tom Lehman and Ilan Zechory co-founded Rap Genius (now
Genius
Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for future works, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabiliti ...
), a website on which users can submit annotations and interpretations of song lyrics and other content. In 2015 he co-founded
Everipedia
Everipedia () is a defunct blockchain-based and online encyclopedia. Everipedia was founded in 2014 and was officially launched in 2015 as a fork of Wikipedia by Larry Sanger (who co-founded Wikipedia). In 2022, Everipedia rebranded to IQ.wiki. ...
, a
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
-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
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
firm Mucker Capital. In 2021 he launched Hella Doge, a social network that gives users
Dogecoin
Dogecoin ( or , Abbreviation: DOGE; sign: Ð) is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a "joke", making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the ...
for posting and for seeing ads.
Personal life and education
Moghadam was born to an
Iranian Jewish
Persian Jews or Iranian Jews ( fa, یهودیان ایرانی, ''yahudiān-e-Irāni''; he, יהודים פרסים ''Yəhūdīm Parsīm'') are the descendants of Jews who were historically associated with the Persian Empire, whose successor s ...
family and grew up in
Encino, California
Encino (Spanish language, Spanish for "oak") is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California.
History
In 1769, the Spanish Portolá expedition, first Europeans to see inland areas of California, traveled north t ...
. He graduated from
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
in 2004 with a major in History and
International Studies
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such as ...
. In 2005, he went to France on a
Fulbright scholarship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
. When he returned in 2005, he enrolled at
Stanford Law School
Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. Stanford La ...
, and graduated in 2008 with a
J.D.
Moghadam is known for his "outlandish" personality and behavior.
In 2013 he received media attention for telling
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), o ...
in an interview and
Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net w ...
in a tweet to "suck
isdick", and for his later public apology to them during an onstage appearance at the
TechCrunch Disrupt New York
TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare.
In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...
conference.
He later attributed some of his behavior to a benign
brain tumor
A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and seconda ...
that was discovered and removed in 2013.
In August 2018, Moghadam appeared as a guest on
Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Noam Baron Cohen (born 13 October 1971) is an English actor, comedian, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his creation and portrayal of the fictional satirical characters Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno Gehard, and Admiral ...
's television series ''
Who is America?
''Who Is America?'' is an American political satire mockumentary style television series created by Sacha Baron Cohen that premiered on July 15, 2018, on Showtime. Baron Cohen also stars in the series as various characters and executive produce ...
'', in which Cohen adopted various disguises and personas to capture his guests behaving in embarrassing ways. Believing he was doing a photoshoot with a "playboy photographer" named Gio, Moghadam is shown making the
Bloods
The Bloods are a primarily African-American street gang founded in Los Angeles, California. The gang is widely known for its rivalry with the Crips. It is identified by the red color worn by its members and by particular gang symbols, includin ...
gang sign
A gang signal, also known as a gang sign, is a verbal or visual way gang members identify their affiliation. This can take many forms including slogans, hand signs, colored clothing and graffiti. The wearer usually favors, or is in, that part ...
and imitating shooting a gun when Cohen asks him to "do something like a black guy." Later Cohen has him pose in front of a
green screen
Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to r ...
so he could later be photoshopped into scenes as though he is feeding starving children.
In September 2018, Moghadam had an
epileptic seizure
An epileptic seizure, informally known as a seizure, is a period of symptoms due to abnormally excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Outward effects vary from uncontrolled shaking movements involving much of the body with los ...
attributable to a second brain tumor, and had brain surgery later that month.
Career
After graduating from law school in 2008, Moghadam became an attorney at the law firm of
Dewey & LeBoeuf
Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP was a global law firm headquartered in New York City, United States. Some of the firm's leaders were indicted for fraud for their role in allegedly cooking the company's books to obtain loans while hiding the firm's financial ...
.
In 2009, many law offices who were trying to endure the
Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...
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
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from ...
in
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...
. 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
The Allstate Corporation is an American insurance company, headquartered in Northfield Township, Illinois, near Northbrook since 1967. Founded in 1931 as part of Sears, Roebuck and Co., it was spun off in 1993 but still partially owned by S ...
insurance company, which was a client of Dewey & LeBoeuf).
In August 2009, Moghadam and Tom Lehman founded
Rap Genius
Genius is an American digital media company founded on August 27, 2009, by Tom Lehman, Ilan Zechory, and Mahbod Moghadam. The site allows user-generated content, users to provide annotations and interpretation to song lyrics, news stories, sourc ...
, a website that initially allowed users to annotate and interpret song lyrics.
Moghadam was included in the 2013
''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 list along with the other Rap Genius cofounders.
In 2014, Rap Genius rebranded to Genius and expanded to support annotations for news stories, poetry, and other documents.
Moghadam resigned 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
The 2014 Isla Vista killings were a series of misogynistic terror attacks in Isla Vista, California. On the evening of May 23, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger
killed six people and injured fourteen others—by gunshot, stabbing and vehicle ramm ...
, which he described as "beautifully written".
His comments were described by
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...
as "tasteless and creepy",
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."
In 2015, Moghadam met
Sam Kazemian
Sam Hamidi-Kazemian ( fa, سام حمیدیکاظمیان; born February 12, 1993) is an Iranian Americans, Iranian-American programmer, software programmer. He is the founder of Frax Finance, a decentralized stablecoin cryptocurrency protocol ...
and joined him as co-founder and Chief Community Officer of
Everipedia
Everipedia () is a defunct blockchain-based and online encyclopedia. Everipedia was founded in 2014 and was officially launched in 2015 as a fork of Wikipedia by Larry Sanger (who co-founded Wikipedia). In 2022, Everipedia rebranded to IQ.wiki. ...
, a
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...
-based online encyclopedia.
Everipedia
Everipedia () is a defunct blockchain-based and online encyclopedia. Everipedia was founded in 2014 and was officially launched in 2015 as a fork of Wikipedia by Larry Sanger (who co-founded Wikipedia). In 2022, Everipedia rebranded to IQ.wiki. ...
raised $30M from Galaxy Digital to build a competitor of
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
on the EOS blockchain. The investment came together through a conversation between Moghadam and Bitcoin Foundation chairman
Brock Pierce
Brock Jeffrey Pierce (born November 14, 1981) is an American entrepreneur known primarily for his work in the cryptocurrency industry. As a child actor, he starred in Disney films '' The Mighty Ducks'' (1992), '' D2: The Mighty Ducks'' (1994), an ...
.
After leaving Everipedia, Moghadam began working at
venture capital
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
firm Mucker Capital.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moghadam, Mahbod
1982 births
American technology company founders
American technology executives
American venture capitalists
American people of Iranian descent
Living people
Stanford Law School alumni
Yale University alumni