Rap Genius co-founder out after annotating alleged killer's manifesto

Perhaps for his next business venture, Rap Genius co-founder Mahbod Moghadam will create an app that alerts you before you compliment an alleged mass murderer on his eloquent turn of phrase.

Moghadam is leaving Rap Genius — a site that lets users add their own interpretations to song lyrics and documents — after he annotated the manifesto written by Elliot Rodger, who police say killed six people and injured 13 in Santa Barbara on Friday. In the section where Rodger discusses his teenage sister and her sex life, Moghadam wrote "MY GUESS: his sister is smokin hot." In two other spots, he noted that he found Rodger's sentences "beautifully written."

On Sunday, Moghadam told Gawker he was "fascinated by the fact that a text was associated with such a heartbreaking crime," and was "very sorry for writing" his commentary on it. That wasn't good enough; in a statement released Monday, Rap Genius co-founder and CEO Tom Lehman said that the comments "not only didn't attempt to enhance anyone's understanding of the text, but went beyond that into gleeful insensitivity and misogyny." While the statement says Moghadam resigned, Re/Code claims that he was actually fired. The annotations have been deleted from the site.

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