Controversial and tireless genius and Everipedia co-founder and angel investor Mahbod Moghadam has passed away at the age of 41 due to complications from a recurrent brain tumor, according to a post from his family last month. left. Published on Genius.
The startup world appears to have learned of his death this weekend. Tributes poured in on the X platform, including from TechCrunch writer-turned-investor Josh Constine. It's still in its infancy and it's called a rap genius. Constine wrote: “Say goodbye to Mabod. Complex, sensitive, and sometimes problematic, but also really funny, smart, and always unique.”
Moghadam most recently lived in Los Angeles, where he spent about 20 months as an entrepreneur-in-residence at venture firm Mucker Capital, in part to find a plan to help creators get paid more directly for their work. I was focused.
One recent effort was HellaDoge, a short-lived social media platform that offered to pay users dogecoin in exchange for providing dogecoin-related content for the benefit of the rest of the platform's users. The idea on the surface is that unlike Facebook or Twitter, which generate advertising revenue on their own based on user engagement, HellaDoge's users directly benefit from their participation.
According to Hip Hop, in an interview with online media outlet 11 months ago, Moghadam talked about a similar idea for a company called Communistagram. He said: [as a creator] Rather than relying on Spotify or YouTube to get paid, just pay for what you use.”
Moghadam's interest in how people can and should receive money dates back to 2009. After graduating from Yale University and Stanford Law School, he became a lawyer in 2008, just as the economy was collapsing. In the same interview last year, Moghaddam said he “just tiptoed around” the offices of the law firm where he got his first job, praying he wouldn't get fired.
When the inevitable happened – Moghadam said the law firm “ended up giving us the money to walk away.” He used the money to co-found Rap Genius with two of his Yale friends, Ilan Zechory and Tom Lehman.
Originally, the site invited users to annotate and explain hip-hop lyrics, but it eventually became so popular that rappers were drawn to the platform to explain their lyrics and correct users who messed up their lyrics, including rapper Nas. He became an advisor and one of the first investors.
When Rap Genius graced the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in May 2013, the trio had received funding from Andreessen Horowitz and were on the verge of rebranding Rap Genius as Genius and expanding its reach.
However, Moghadam also began to attract attention to tin companies due to their bellicose behavior, both public and private. In November 2013, he blamed his bad behavior on a benign fetal brain tumor that was removed through emergency surgery. But he continued to push the envelope. In fact, Moghaddam resigned at the urging of Lehman, then the company's CEO, in 2014 after posting provocative comments in the comments following the killer's manifesto on the Genius platform.
Moghadam later co-founded Everipedia, a now-defunct decentralized blockchain-based encyclopedia that allowed users to create pages on any topic, as long as the content was neutral and cited.
When things took a downturn, he joined Mucker Capital.
Looking back, Moghadam expressed disappointment that Genius contributors were not paid for helping build the platform. “The only reason Genius can make a living doing domestic work is because people love music so much.” He said in an interview with Addict 2 Hip Hop last year.
Either way, the company fell short of its ambitions, failing to expand much beyond its core readership of rap fans and failing to successfully sue Google for copying lyrics and posting them at the top of search results in an attempt to capture users who might otherwise have visited Genius. I couldn't do it.
In 2021, it sold to a holding company for $80 million, less than half the amount it raised from venture investors.
Although Moghadam never reached the same heights professionally as in the early days of Genius, he was highly regarded by Genius' most ardent fans, appearing on various podcasts where passionate hosts praised him.
Moghadam also said in an interview last year that he has never forgiven Lehman and is still trying to sue the company in an attempt to “squeeze some juice out of this rock.”
Blaming Genius' new owners, Moghadam added: [original] chief executive [Lehman] He created a genius with his own two hands. He's a weirdo. “That’s the only good thing about him.”