Ousted Rap Genius Cofounder Says He Loves To Steal From Whole Foods And Thinks You Should, Too

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Mahbod Moghadam

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Mahbod Moghadam

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Rap Genius cofounder Mahbod Moghadam took to Thought Catalog on Friday to detail his love for stealing from Whole Foods, in an essay aptly titled "How To Steal From Whole Foods."

"When I started working on genius.com, Whole Foods was our first 'angel investor' - without stealing all the food I stole from the Berkeley Whole Foods [1], I would never have been able to spend a year bootstrapping, working on the site full-time."

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Rap Genius, which now goes by Genius, lets you annotate text and embed it elsewhere.

In the true form of Genius, this essay is also annotated. In this instance, he calls Whole Foods "cheap" and "lackluster," with a friendly staff. Oh, and "paying is optional."

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His appetite for Whole Foods grew as his company grew. He spent as much as $100 a day at the store, partly to feed his addiction to gluten-free muffins.

Moghadam was reportedly ousted from Genius in May after he allegedly annotated the 141-page manifesto written by Elliot Roger, the man accused of going on a shooting spree in Santa Barbara, California.

Moghadam says that losing his job also meant he wasn't able to go Whole Foods as often anymore. But that might have been a blessing in disguise, he writes. "In fact, losing my unlimited free Whole Foods is the best thing that ever happened to me," he writes. "It is the main reason I am glad I'm no longer with the company."

He said he's lost weight and has kicked his Whole Foods habit down to $30 a day.

But still, if others want to be Whole Foods "hustlers," Moghadam has you covered. He provides a handy guide book on how to steal from the store, including tips such as, "If a certain kind of apple is on sale, you can also change tags to get the cheaper price on other apples" and, "You can put anything into the soup container and pay for a soup."

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Yikes.

Read the rest of his stealing guide book on Thought Catalog. Just remember that stealing is wrong. And illegal.