Emad Mostaque, founder and CEO of Stability AI, has stepped down from his leadership position to focus on decentralized AI, the company announced. Stability AI has appointed interim dual leadership and is searching for a permanent replacement.
According to Stability AI, CEO Emad Mostaque has resigned from his role as CEO and from the company's board to focus on "decentralized AI." Mostaque stated that he had too much power over Stability AI due to his shares. He plans to announce further news about his new role shortly.
"We should have more transparent and distributed governance in AI as it becomes more and more important," writes Mostaque.
The board has temporarily assigned Mostaque's responsibilities to two executives: Chief Operating Officer Shan Shan Wong and Chief Technology Officer Christian Laforte will serve as co-CEOs until a permanent successor is found. The company stated that a search for a new CEO is already underway.
Jim O'Shaughnessy, Chairman of the Board at Stability AI, thanked Mostaque for his leadership and "relentless commitment to Stability AI and the open source movement."
O'Shaughnessy expressed confidence that Wong and Laforte, in their roles as interim co-CEOs, will competently lead the company in the development and commercialization of industry-leading generative AI products.
Generative AI is a challenging business
Mostaque's resignation comes at a time when generative AI companies are under increasing pressure to monetize their models and develop viable business models. Stability AI, in particular, has reportedly been in financial trouble.
Recently, Intel stepped in to support the company. Stability AI is trying to make money primarily through API services.
Stability AI has developed Stable Diffusion, one of the most prominent open-source models for image generation, and competes with proprietary solutions from OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Adobe. Recently, leading researchers involved with Stable Diffusion left the company after the team released Stable Diffusion 3.
