Check out the tech entrepreneur’s interview and more
Mahbod Moghadam has had a long and successful journey as a game changer in internet entrepreneurship. Starting in 2009 with help of Tom Lehman they started the website Rap Genuis. A website that initially allowed users to annotate and interpret song lyrics which now goes by the name simply Genuis. If you have ever looked up lyrics online then there’s a high possibility that you’ve stumbled across their website. The Iranian-American later went on to investing/co-founding in Everipedia an online encyclopedia that features not being as restrictive as Wikipedia.
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Where are you from and what was life like growing up?
My family is from Iran but I was the only one born in America. I was born in H-wood but grew up in the Valley. I rep 818 for life. My parents did not have money, my dad was a jeweler but he had to stop working when I was a senior in high school cause he got robbed by armed gunmen in front of our house (they followed him home from the jewelry mart). I went to a shitty high school but I educated myself by stealing books from our local Barnes & Noble, where they didn’t have security. This is why I think Bezos should start building physical bookstores – to let precocious children steal books just like he eased the nibbling rules at Whole Foods.
What inspired the idea behind ‘Genius’?
Tom came up with it while we listened to Killa Cam, who was the hottest rapper of the era (DIPSET) – Tom was always thinking up apps! He had built like 3 of them before. I always knew he would be rich and I wanted to weasel my way into one of his ideas – a month earlier I had begged him to make me General Counsel for bombsheets.com (his bed sheets e-commerce website (RIP)) I always knew this fucker would blow up because he could code – back then nobody knew how to code. Also he comes from a long line of ballers – his uncle owns pretty much every japanese car dealership in Southern Florida! I recently found out the way we got our investment in Genius is because Tom’s dad is boys with the owner of the Miami Heat and told him to send Lebron back to Cleveland – so the owner of the Cavs invested in us cause we got him Bron back… but then he went to the Lakers! OOPS! It’s too late to take the money back tho.
Explain more on the process of starting and building the brand:
Most of Genius’ traffic was people googling the word “lyrics” – but like
20% of the google searches also had the word “GENIUS” – that was huge, we would always brag about it, cause it meant our site was different from the
other lyrics sites and people knew that. Then this rapper Monster Mike from Chicago got a Rap Genius neck tattoo – it was a big part of our pitch deck to investors. Monster Mike should get some advisor shares, I gotta email Tom about that. The neck tattoo was when we knew we had made it – when people are tattooing your brand on their NECK – that’s when you know you’ve arrived.
But the BIGGEST part of building the Genius brand was having Nas, Pharrell and Eminem invest. Nas and Eminem killed it – they are the best tech investors of all time. They are both obsessed with Genius. Nas became best friends with our tech-side investor Ben Horowitz and we got Nas to start his own VC. Eminem is one of the top users in the app’s history – he broke down the meaning to ALL of his lyrics, even his old songs. His manager told me that Genius is the only app Slim Shady has ever used – he has never even used email or instagram!
Sometimes celebrity investors just put down money and don’t care – but if you can get celebrity investors who are passionate about your app, it is game over. The whole concept of “Verified” was Nas’ idea. I don’t think anyone has as passionate of celebrity investors as we do. ps Kanye didn’t invest but he personally designed the Genius homepage – he needs some advisor shares too…
What projects are you currently working on?
I am looking for something cool! If you have an app and you want to be famous – HIT ME UP. Make me your cofounder. I made Everipedia blow up too and those guys are total nerds… even nerdier than Tom.
Right now I am working full-time on Genius and Everipedia – mainly getting rappers to put their lyrics and bios up on my platforms. I think, if you are a rapper, you need your TRACKS on SoundCloud, your LYRICS on Genius, and your BIO on Everipedia – that’s the holy trinity.
I might invest in this app called Librex – it is a way for college students to have anonymous discussions. I like it because the people behind it remind me of the Rap Genius crew – they are passionate and they know how to code! For me, that’s the biggest make-or-break for apps – did the CEO build it or did they pay some random international developers to build it? The former is usually successful whereas the latter tends to fail.
We noticed you’ve dipped into crypto investing, what got you started in that and what is your take on the latest surge in the price drop?
Yes I was one of the earliest investors! I wrote this article in 2014 before anyone was even talking about it. I was put onto it by Balaji, who is one of the Dons of Silicon Valley. He is one of those guys who is lowkey running the show from behind the scenes. If Silicon Valley was TDE – Balaji would be Top Dawg.
But the reason I got so passionate about the whole concept behind it and the reason why Everipedia is crypto-based is because I liked the idea of compensating volunteers for creating content. At Genius, for breaking down lyrics, you would get IQ points. Everipedia had IQ points too, but our investor Brock Pierce came up with the idea of making the points worth money. Also, the points give you votes over governance of the site. I wish Genius would do the same thing. At Genius it always bothered me that the volunteers either worked
for free, or we had to hire them full-time. Why not just give someone
compensation for what they’ve done? One time I started something called “Cash Genius” where I wanted to mail $100 checks to top editors – I got into a lot of trouble! My cofounders got mad at me and a lot of the community members strangely got pissed too. This was in 2012 – back then the “internet rule” was that you can’t pay people to use your site. There was a famous story about how Kanye had asked to get paid before using Twitter and they kind of forced him to use it without paying.. it seemed messed up.
I was one of the earliest users of Facebook – I had a cult following on FB in 2005! Zuck should give me $3 million of “Facecoin” – why didn’t I get anything for helping build such a huge company? A lot of Genius’ top volunteers probably feel the same way. Hopefully cryptocurrency can change that – that’s why I’m so passionate about it.
I think the price is doing good – it went down during the crash but I don’t think it went down THAT much. It’s just a matter of perspective. But someday I believe every bitcoin will be worth $1 million – so buy some! You don’t need to buy a whole bitcoin you can invest 10 bucks or as little as you want. It’s cool just to learn how to store digital currency! Having a digital wallet now is like having a cell phone in the early 90s – it puts you AHEAD OF THE GAME.
If you could pick one crypto to invest in what would it be and why?
Bitcoin fasho! It is the brand name – just like Genius. Bitcoin is the
“Genius of Crypto”! Which crypto is most likely to have people writing the name as tattoos on the neck? My philosophy is that if you have the brand, you can copy technology from competitors. Just like how Instagram ripped off Snapchat and succeeded. I think Bitcoin can do the same thing to its competitors since it is the household name.
What is your most favorite project to date?
My favorite company of my own is Genius – I think we have the coolest brand in all of tech except for Instagram. Rappers dream of having a Genius interview, so I try to guide them down the path and make them USE THE APP – I spend most of my day telling yung rappers that they need to start using the app and breaking down their own lyrics before we can do an interview. If you’re interested, sign up! Make your Everipedia page too, I can help you blow up.
What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?
OH MAN – you probably mean business advice, but when I think back on myself at that age the thing that makes me sad is the garbage I was eating and drinking. I would tell myself STOP EATING SUGAR! Stop eating dairy and gluten too. Drink more water. Don’t drink coffee it is poison! Go to the gym every day it’s more important than grades or chilling with friends. ALSO – Sleep
Anyone who wants to get involved in Genius or Everipedia message Mahbod on Instagram
