Emad Mostaque said of his job as CEO: “It’s like staring into the abyss and chewing on glass.” z_wei/Getty
Since his resignation, the former CEO of Stability AI has spoken out about his dislike of his position.
Emad Mostaque says he agrees with Elon Musk that being a CEO is “like looking into the abyss and chewing glass.”
The former CEO said he was not good at his job and there were reports of mismanagement under his leadership.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by a real editor.
Emad Mostaque, former head of Stability AI, believes Elon Musk is right about one thing: being CEO isn’t fun.
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Stability AI CEO resigns
Emad Mostaque resigned in March as CEO of Stability AI, the company behind popular AI image generator Stable Diffusion. Since his resignation, he has spoken out about the demands of the job, as his leadership of Stability AI has been the subject of several critical reports in the past week.
When asked about his departure, Mostaque told New York Times reporter Kevin Roose that “being CEO sucks.” Roose reported parts of the text conversation in his Podcast „Hard Fork“.
“Elon was right. It’s like looking into the abyss and chewing glass,” Mostaque said in a message to Roose, according to the reporter. “I am not a normal person. It’s impossible for me to manage distributed instability and I don’t like being CEO.”
Elon Musk also doesn’t like the role of CEO
Mostaque’s statements follow a series of statements Elon Musk has made over the years about his dislike of his role as CEO.
Elon Musk commented in one Lex Fridman Podcast in 2022 about the role of founder, quoting a friend who said, “Starting a company is like staring into the abyss and eating glass.” Musk agreed, saying there was “some truth in that.”
“Running businesses hurts my heart.”
The tech CEO said staring into the abyss represents the constant threat of annihilation that companies face. And eating broken glass means working on problems the company wants you to do instead of what you want to do.
Musk has too on X, formerly Twitter, wrote in 2022 that he “never wanted to be CEO – just wanted to work on product/tech.” He added: “Running businesses hurts my heart, but I see no other way to make technology and design successful.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk told a Delaware court in 2023 that he “tried very hard not to be the CEO of Tesla. “I rather hate it and would rather spend my time on design and engineering, which is basically what I like to do,” said the Tesla CEO.
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Mostaque reveals his true feelings about being a CEO
Since leaving Stability, Mostaque has expressed similar sentiments on his public profiles about how difficult the job can be.
In one Interview with tech podcaster Peter Diamandis on Friday, he explained that he is particularly good at helping creatives, developers and researchers realize their potential when designing systems. However, he said he should not be involved in human resources, operations and business development.
Is said in a post on X on Friday that he was “a bit of a weird CEO that people didn’t like” and he had trouble communicating.
The former Stability CEO also mentioned in Reddit threads surrounding his tenure as CEO that he has Asperger’s and ADHD, which made the role more difficult for him.
Mostaque faces allegations related to his time as CEO
Although Stability started out as one of the hottest AI startups, the company is now reportedly facing financial difficulties, a copyright lawsuit, and significant leadership turnover.
Recent reports claim that Mostaque’s mismanagement may be responsible for some of the company’s difficulties.
Former company executives and employees described Mostaque’s tenure as at times “chaotic” and said the company was “now a shadow of its former self,” reported “Bloomberg“. A spokesperson for Stability told Bloomberg in a statement that the company is focused on “commercializing our world-leading technology and providing AI operating systems and tools to our partners in the creative industries.
„Forbes” also reported unpaid bills and a disastrous meeting with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, which Mostaque denied. The former Stability CEO responded to the Forbes article on the Platform X and said, it is “mostly lies and concealments”. In addition, he did not meet with Jensen last year. Business Insider has reached out to Forbes for additional comment on Mostaque’s response.
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Mostaque faces the allegations
The former CEO posted more responses on
“The final accusation is that I am a bad leader, which can be considered appropriate,” said he. “Being CEO sucks. And I did it because I had to and I was focused on getting the company to where it was independent, but my ADHD and Asperger’s get in the way.”
Stability AI has not commented on Mosaque’s comments about being CEO.
Read the original article Business Insider.