Rap Genius co-founder Mahbod Moghadam is a testament to just how far you can push a venture capitalist. The Yale graduate is one of tech's foremost delusional fools—repeatedly embarrassing himself, his company, and everyone connected with it. He eventually resigned from the startup after publicly praising parts of a serial killer's manifesto. Yet it took a post about thieving from Whole Foods for one of his investors to finally disown him.

Moghadam's instructional guide, titled "How To Steal From Whole Foods," revealed some sad details about the early days of Rap Genius (now simply called "Genius"):

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. [...] As Genius.com grew, so did my Whole Foods appetite. When I resigned, I was in the habit of expensing $100 A DAY at Whole Foods; my co-founders would yell at me and I would get all defensive and say "well I need protein and protein costs money!"

The startup Abbie Hoffman then went over some basic "hustles," like falsely identifying your bulk bin items and shoving hard boiled eggs in your mouth at the salad bar. He also suggested minorities will help you steal:

Sorry to get all sexist/racist here – I love all people, I swear it – but, in case you're at a new Whole Foods and you don't know who the cool cashiers are yet, the most sympathetic cashiers are young, male minorities. Women, old-timers and whites are far, far more likely, in my experience, to fuck with your shit.

All this proved to be too much for Ben Horowitz, whose venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has invested millions in Genius. When criticism rolled in, Horowitz was quick to point out that Moghadam is no longer at the company and state "I don't back him."

The restrained refutes didn't last long. Soon enough, Horowitz was slamming his former buddy entrepreneur:

@PaulRoales @Genius no worries. He is not a nice person for sure. — Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz) November 16, 2014

@mahbodmoghadam @Genius It's not that I don't like you. It's just a tragedy that you care only about yourself. I wish you only the best. — Ben Horowitz (@bhorowitz) November 17, 2014

You would have thought this denouncement might have come after Moghadam claimed his glorified lyrics startup would someday buy Google. Or when he told Mark Zuckerberg to "suck my dick." Or when he blamed his asshole routine on a brain tumor. Instead, it took a blog post about shoplifting from a grocery store.

To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.

Photo: Getty