During the Cerebral Valley AI Conference in San Francisco on Thursday, Emad Mostaque, the CEO and founder of Stability AI, revealed that he plans to take the open-source platform public within the next few years. Stability AI is a leader in generative artificial intelligence and an Open AI rival. Mostaque dismissed the idea of Stability AI being acquired. He explained that going public requires having amazing revenue, margins, and distribution. The company is only 17 months old, and the business model of Stability AI’s open-source platform will be seen more clearly in the next year. Mostaque doesn’t want to give away his arbitrage opportunities.
Stability AI made waves when it created Stable Diffusion, an image-generating system, and Dance Diffusion. The company also developed open-source music, and Mostaque is passionate about creating open-source standards in the world of generated art.
Mostaque was one of over 1,100 signatories to an open letter calling for more regulation in the AI space, with a specific request for “‘all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months.” Along with Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Tristan Harris, Mostaque demanded transparency and governance in OpenAI, a platform whose governance is unknown and entirely opaque.
Bloomberg reports that Stability AI is seeking funding that would value the company at $4 billion. This is up from the reported $1 billion post-money valuation when it raised capital from Coatue and Lightspeed Venture partners in October. Mostaque declined to comment on fundraising rumors. Earlier this month, Stability AI acquired imaging tool Init ML.
Despite the recent activity in the AI space, Mostaque doesn’t believe that AI is a bubble. He advises founders to focus on building good products that solve problems. According to Mostaque, most of the stuff in the AI space is still surface-level.
