Raised in a family involved in the diplomatic service, Majd lived from infancy abroad, mostly in the US and in England but attending American schools in varied places, such as Tunis and New Delhi. He boarded at St Paul's School in London, England until 1974 and attended George Washington University for electrical engineering in Washington, D.C. and graduated in 1977. He studied operations research at GWU for two more years but did not complete. He stayed in the US after the 1979 revolution.