Emad Mostaque, CEO of one of the leading AI startups, announced he is resigned to “pursue decentralized AI.”

Stability AI bills itself as “the world’s leading open source generative AI company.” The company recently struck a strategic business alliance with Amazon, making its AI model available on Amazon Bedrock. Despite its gains, however, Mostaque believes the continued development of centralized AI is the wrong approach.

Not going to beat centralized AI with more centralized AI.

All in on #DecentralizedAI

— Emad Mostaque (@EMostaque) | March 22, 2024

In a blog post on the company’s site, Stability says COO Shan Shan Wong and CTO Christian Laforte will serve as interim co-CEOs while the search for a permanent replacement is conducted.

“On behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to thank Emad for his leadership and relentless commitment to Stability AI and the open source movement,” said Jim O’Shaughnessy, Chairman of the Board at Stability AI. “As we search for a permanent CEO, I have full confidence that Shan Shan Wong and Christian Laforte, in their roles as interim co-CEOs, will adeptly steer the company forward in developing and commercializing industry-leading generative AI products. Their complementary skill sets and experience ideally suit them for this role, giving us confidence in our future and in our ability to emerge from this period as a stronger company.”

“I am proud two years after bringing on our first developer to have led Stability to hundreds of millions of downloads and the best models across modalities. I believe strongly in Stability AI’s mission and feel the company is in capable hands. It is now time to ensure AI remains open and decentralised,” said Emad Mostaque.

Interestingly, Mostaque says his shares have majority vote in Stability, as well as full board control, making it unclear how profoundly his resignation will impact the company.

As my notifications are RIP some notes:

1. My shares have majority of vote @StabilityAI
2. They have full board control

The concentration of power in AI is bad for us all

I decided to step down to fix this at Stability & elsewhere

Will be sharing more soon

Exciting times

— Emad Mostaque (@EMostaque) | March 22, 2024