Stability AI CEO resigns because you're 'not going to beat centralized AI with more centralized AI'Stability AI founder and chief executive Emad Mostaque has stepped down from the top role and the unicorn startup's board, the buzzy firm said Friday night, making it the second hot AI startup to go through major changes this week.
Stability AI, which has been backed by investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners and Coatue Management, doesn't have an immediate permanent replacement for the CEO role but has appointed its COO Shan Shan Wong and CTO Christian Laforte as interim co-CEOs, it said in a blog post.
Stability AI, which has lost more than half a dozen key talent in recent quarters, said Mostaque is stepping down to pursue decentralized AI. In a series of posts on X, Mostaque opined that one can't beat "centralized AI" with more "centralized AI," referring to the ownership structure of top AI startups such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
He additionally asserted that it was his decision to step down from the top role as he held the most number of controlling shares. "We should have more transparent & distributed governance in AI as it becomes more and more important. Its [sic] a hard problem, but I think we can fix it..," he added. "The concentration of power in AI is bad for us all. I decided to step down to fix this at Stability & elsewhere."
Official announcement: stability.ai/news/stabilityai-announcement