Stability AI, led by CEO Emad Mostaque, emerged as one of the first high-flying startups in the generative AI boom, garnering a $1 billion seed valuation. Within months the relationship with investors broke down and spurred a campaign to oust Mostaque, who resigned on Saturday.
So as understand it, they took someone’s image generation AI code, snookered two VCs into way over-investing, had no idea what to do then, and crashed.
The AI hype train was annoying a year ago. Now it’s just sad.
What has it transformed? Nothing - unless one counts the enshittification of image searches or cheap article graphics. It’s already eaten billions and still nothing.
Shit you could do good in the world with that money if you wanted to.
An interesting piece but isn’t this what VC investors do, not every play will result in a unicorn and those that do pay for the losses of those that don’t. I expect more than a few billion will evaporate into vapourware as we crest this wave of generative ai hype.