Megh Vakharia of SymphonyOS on World Building in the Music Biz

It's all about building novel experiences to stoke fan engagement

Megh is a creative technologist and entrepreneur focused on building culture-shifting tools for the next generation of artists, creators and the entertainment industry-at-large. His latest venture is SymphonyOS, a platform utilizing AI to combine data and automate audience targeting while generating views, streams and subscribers. He also spearheads product and data strategy as co-founder and CTO of Integral Studio, a music marketing agency. To date, Integral has supported projects that have led to four Grammy-nominated albums and over a dozen Platinum-selling records for SZA, Travis Scott, Future, Childish Gambino and more.

Earlier, Megh was at Hulu on the personalization and app experiences team, as well as the engineering team at Sears.

We spent two minutes with Megh to learn more about his background, his creative inspirations and recent work he’s admired. 

Megh, tell us …

Where you grew up, and where you live now.

I was born in Gujarat, India, and moved to America when I was 3. I grew up primarily in a suburb of Seattle. I spent the last seven years in L.A., and now live in Brooklyn.

Your earliest musical memory.

Going to see Blue Man Group with my parents. My dad was like, “It’s a bunch of guys that are all blue.” And I was like, “What the hell?” It was my first time seeing an experiential approach to music-making. They were on stage, hitting drums with color everywhere. That experience stuck with me, and inspired some of the work we now carry out with artists.

Your favorite bands/musicians today.

Love Doechii. It’s rare to see an artist do so much world-building with their music and rollouts. I’ve been following Central Cee for about three years. It’s cool to see him get recognition, especially with his studio album. I’d also shout out my homies, like Amit, who runs an artist management company called KOGO. He’s got amazing artists like Rehma, Asha Imuno, KOAD and Nafeesisbougiee. It’s inspiring to see this community he’s built with Black and Brown kids from different walks of life and genres like R&B, pop and rap.

One of your favorite projects you’ve ever worked on.

SZA’s CTRL album. I moved to L.A. at 21, right before I graduated, and ended up working on the CTRL rollout for nine months. It was my first time seeing an artist go through their creative process. TDE (Top Dawg Entertainment) gave SZA so much scope to build her world and tell her story. We took her drawings and concepts and created a website. This hands-on approach—building a world with an artist and taking novel approaches—was inspiring and continues to influence the work we do at SymphonyOS today.

A recent project you’re proud of.

SZA’s Lana rollout was a crazy one. It was my first time building a website in years. We applied similar principles from CTRL, such as digitizing physical items. The artist built an ant farm, and we digitized it into an interactive, multimedia project on the web. It was a journey—learning how to build assets like this. It was rewarding and showcased the evolution of combining physical art and digital experiences.

One thing about how the music world is evolving that you’re excited about.

We’re getting back to a place where fan engagement and world-building are center stage. Everything is on theme and on brand, especially in this post-TikTok and short-form content world. It’s exciting to see artists build names and brands by crafting immersive worlds and telling stories around their music. We lost that essence for a bit. But now, with high accessibility to making music and content, it’s coming back.

Someone else’s work, in music or beyond, that you admired lately. 

I admire Doechii for her world-building, visual storytelling and live performances like the Tiny Desk Concert:

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Outside of music, I’ve been impressed by Cursor, an AI tool used by developers. It adds to productivity without being a distraction. It helps users be more efficient and focus on creative and strategic tasks rather than administrative ones.

A book, movie, TV show or podcast you recently found inspiring.

Shoe Dog, the book about Phil Knight, founder of Nike. It resonated because of his persistence and the countless challenges he faced while building Nike into a global brand. His story inspired me to push through obstacles.

An artist you admire outside the world of music.

We always use Apple as a model for how to scale as a company. Jonathan Ive’s work designing iPhone, iMac and Apple Watch for the masses has made an impact on us.

Your favorite fictional character.

Road Runner. I never stop, go at lightning speed, and always end up winning in the end.

Someone worth following on social media.

Will Toms. He’s always got some knowledge on how to win as a creator, entrepreneur and partner with people who want to make a genuine impact.

Your main strength as a marketer/creative.

My ability to blend technical knowledge and marketing/creative knowledge. Coming into the game as a developer and then working with amazing artists to build worlds and tell stories has shaped my ability to execute at a high level. I’ve worked across various roles: as a manager, running a label, building teams, running an agency, running ads—all of it has shaped me. Another strength lies in treading between all these areas—and from a technical standpoint, especially when it comes to understanding data at a deep engineering level.

Your biggest weakness.

My inability to say no. I like to take on things even when I don’t have the bandwidth, which is something I’m trying to work on.

Something people would find surprising about you.

People are surprised when I tell them I code, especially coming from the music side. I’ve spent over 10 years coding and put in my 10,000 hours in the tech world before fully transitioning into music.

What you’d be doing if you weren’t in the music business.

Maybe an architect or fashion or the art world. I was always meant to create things.