Emad Mostaque, the founder and CEO of the AI startup Stability AI, has resigned from his position and the company’s board, announced by the company on Friday night. This event marks the second significant change within a leading AI company this week.
Stability AI, known for its development and backing by major investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and Coatue Management, has not yet named a permanent successor for Mostaque. In the interim, COO Shan Shan Wong and CTO Christian Laforte will serve as co-CEOs, according to a company blog post.
The company, which has seen the departure of several key personnel recently, reported that Mostaque's decision to leave was driven by his interest in advancing decentralized AI. Through a series of messages on X, Mostaque expressed his belief that competing against "centralized AI" with similar structures is futile, highlighting the concentrated ownership seen in leading AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Mostaque, who had significant control over the company due to his shareholding, emphasized the need for AI to have more open and distributed governance. He stated his resignation was aimed at addressing the centralization of power in the AI sector, which he views as detrimental.
His departure follows financial challenges within Stability AI, known for its image generation tool Stable Diffusion, including high monthly expenditures of around $8 million as of October 2023 and failed attempts to secure new funding at a $4 billion valuation, as reported by Bloomberg.
Previously, Mostaque criticized the AI industry's focus on immediate revenue generation, despite the technology not being fully mature. He pointed out the rapid advancement in AI and its potential for significant economic impact, surpassing sectors like autonomous vehicles.
Recently, Mostaque shifted focus towards achieving cash flow positivity for Stability AI, indicating the company’s strong performance and future plans for open models and enterprise adoption, which include offering custom models and consulting services.
This announcement concludes a notable week for the AI industry, following news from Inflection AI that two of its co-founders and several staff members have moved to Microsoft, which participated in the company’s latest funding round.
