Benjamin Goldwasser

Goldwasser met Andrew VanWyngarden, the other half of MGMT, in his freshman year at Wesleyan University.[10] Goldwasser was studying Music at the time.[11] While in college, he was a member of the Eclectic Society, a college society.[12] He helped run the society's music venue (a room in the house).[12] Goldwasser, already a keyboardist, took experimental music classes from composer Ron Kuivila with VanWyngarden which exposed them to progressive musical ideas.[13] They made their debut as MGMT at a party in a college dormitory (playing the theme to the motion picture Ghostbusters over and over for hours).[14] The duo would email one another and sign the emails "The MGMT" as a way of satirizing corporate culture.[10][15] They chose this email signature line as the name of their new band.[15]

After graduating from college in 2005,[4] Goldwasser and VanWyngarden moved to New York City, experimenting with music and building a band.[13] They immediately went on tour, opening for Of Montreal.[4] But no record deal came, and the band was on hiatus by 2006.[16] Goldwasser began working on a farm and was intending to move to California when the duo was signed by Columbia Records.[15] The band's 2008 release for the label, Oracular Spectacular, was a major success.[17] However, the band's sudden success, Goldwasser says, put a serious strain on his friendship with VanWyngarden for a time.[18] The band released its second album, Congratulations, in April 2010 to generally positive reviews.[19] Additionally, in 2013, they released their third studio album, self-titled MGMT. In 2014, Ben, along with psychedelic band Foxygen was featured on The Flaming Lips cover album, With a Little Help from My Fwends, on track 12.