Rap Genius co-founder Mahbod Moghadam is leaving the site over inappropriate comments he inserted into the manifesto left behind by the man believed to have gone on a rampage that killed six people near the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Co-founder and CEO of Rap Genius Tom Lehman said in a statement Monday that when Rap Genius posted Elliot Rodger’s 141-page rant, believed to be the prelude to mass murder, on their site, Moghadam annotated it with irreverent notes like, “beautifully written,” and “Elliot barely mentions his sister Georgia throughout the book! Towards the end, however, he tells us that they did not get along and becomes extremely angry when he hears her having sex with her boyfriend. MY GUESS: his sister is smokin hot.”
The annotations have since been deleted.
Moghadam sent Gawker the following statement after writing the posts:
I was fascinated by the fact that a text was associated with such a heartbreaking crime, especially since Elliot is talking about my neighborhood growing up.
I got carried away with making the annotations and making any comment about his sisters was in horrible taste, thankfully the rap genius community edits out my poor judgment, I am very sorry for writing it
Lehman said in a statement that Moghadam’s comments “not only didn’t attempt to enhance anyone’s understanding of the text, but went beyond that into gleeful insensitivity and misogyny. All of which is contrary to everything we’re trying to accomplish at Rap Genius… I cannot let him compromise the Rap Genius mission.”
Though the statement maintains Moghadam resigned, Re/Code is reporting that Moghadam was actually fired.
This isn’t the first time the startup that got a$15 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz in late 2012 to “annotate the world” has come under fire for its co-founder’s behavior: Moghadam infamously told Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to “suck his d***”, later blaming a brain tumor and drug use for the comments.
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