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Previous controversy involving the CEO (2023): https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/06/04/stable-diffusion-emad-mostaque-stability-ai-exaggeration/ http

Previous controversy involving the CEO (2023): https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/06/04/stable-diffusion-emad-mostaque-stability-ai-exaggeration/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/06/04/stable-di... “ In reality, Mostaque has a bachelor’s degree, not a master’s degree from Oxford. The hedge fund’s banner year was followed by one so poor that it shut down months later. The U.N. hasn’t worked with him for years. And while Stable Diffusion was the main reason for his own startup Stability AI’s ascent to prominence, its source code was written by a different group of researchers. “Stability, as far as I know, did not even know about this thing when we created it,” Björn Ommer, the professor who led the research, told Forbes. “They jumped on this wagon only later on.” “ “ “What he is good at is taking other people’s work and putting his name on it, or doing stuff that you can’t check if it’s true.”

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
coolspot 3y ago
He did provide thousands of GPUs for training all those open-source and open-weights models, no?
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
  People forget, moving things around and funding them and making it all work is what makes an entrepreneur. Elon Musk did that and all great founders do that. Emad doesn't have to write the code himself.
- zenlikethat 3y ago
  Maybe… he certainly was good at taking credit for it. Not course if they stepped in, rebranded something they didn’t make and threw a bunch of AwS GPUs they couldn’t actually afford at it though https://petapixel.com/2023/06/05/so-many-things-dont-add-up-stability-ai-founder-accused-of-exaggerations/ https://petapixel.com/2023/06/05/so-many-things-dont-add-up-...
  - throwaway11460 3y ago
    So where can I download that thing he took credit for?
    - ShamelessC 3y ago
      https://github.com/CompVis/latent-diffusion https://github.com/CompVis/latent-diffusion
anonylizard 3y ago
Emad had the genius idea of essentially paying for the branding rights to an AI model. This was viewed as insane in the pre-ChatGPT era, and only paid off massively in retrospect. Also all those 'controversies' were mostly the result of an aggrieved co-founder/investor who decided to sell their shares before SD1.4's success. Emad may not have proven to be competent enough to run an large AI lab in the long run, but those complaints are just trivial 'controversies'.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  > This was viewed as insane in the pre-ChatGPT era, and only paid off massively in retrospect. Paid off how?
  - throwaway11460 3y ago
    Perhaps the hundreds of millions in VC investment and company value?
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that if a company gets a valuation because of an investment, that creates value?
      - baobabKoodaa 3y ago
        They are saying it was not clear "buying branding rights to an image model" would lead to any investments, any kind of high valuation, or any other financial success. It is only clear in hindsight.
      - l33tman 3y ago
        How would you otherwise define value, except the value that someone is willing to assign to a share of a company or goods when purchasing? Value can go up and down though..
spxneo 3y ago
wow I did NOT know this I wonder how many ppl among VC/PE circles are also sugar coating their experiences and successes
- dpflan 3y ago
  It's the game to play. Asymmetric information with the goal to attain wealth, influence, power, ego-stroke, whatever opportunity is present.
_xivi 3y ago
> What he is good at is taking other people’s work and putting his name on it, or doing stuff that you can’t check if it’s true. I have to say, this is a quite common ignorant statement that's said about almost every CEO. I'm not sure if there's more to it in this particular case, but no, CEOs aren't stealing your work. Similarly, marketers aren't parasites. Designers aren't there to waste your time. Many engineers seem to hold similar belief that others are holding them down or taking advantage of their work. This is just a congnitive bias.
- subtra3t 3y ago
  Not surprised at all to see how unpopular this sentiment is on HN. For some reason HN seems to love one dimensional stereotypes for every job that isn't theirs. Actually that's wrong, even the idea that engineers are smarter than managers is very prevalent here.
- baobabKoodaa 3y ago
  Emad jumped on the train after the major inventions were invented and PoCs were made. He could not have contributed to them unless he had a time machine. (Yes he contributed to the training costs of SD1.4 but the time point when he made the decision was not early research.)
  - _xivi 3y ago
    Sorry I'm not well versed in the story and it's still not clear to me what he did wrong. Where is the controversy here? Is the CEO expected to contribute to research? there seems to be some context I'm missing
    - baobabKoodaa 3y ago
      You made a point about devs underappreciating the work of other professionals, like CEOs and designers. You made this point in the context of Emad and the success story that is Stable Diffusion. The implication in your point is that Emad surely contributed to the success, even though the CEO is not a developer or researcher. My counter to your point is that Emad wasn't there when the inventions were made. He joined the party after success was already evident. Emad's main contribution to the success of Stable Diffusion is that he funded the training of a large model. That's great, but this thing would've happened with or without him. The inventions were made before he funded the training of SD1.4. If Emad had been supporting the research team from the beginning, one might argue that he created the conditions for their success, or whatever. But he wasn't there at that time. None of this is related to whatever Emad is accused of. I'm just making a point about how we attribute contribution for success.
barrkel 3y ago
FWIW, Rombach and Esser, the two guys behind the original model, gave some appreciation for Emad on Twitter just now.
jack_riminton 3y ago
An Oxford MA is confusingly what you automatically a few years after leaving undergrad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(Oxford,_Cambridge,_and_Dublin) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(Oxford,_Cambri... So there's that
seydor 3y ago
Thats a hit piece, but whatever, isn't that what the most prominent/funded academics do? As far as i know he is known generally as CEO of the company that makes SD, not as the creator of SD. It does look like without him these models wouldnt have evolved so much

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

coolspot 3y ago

He did provide thousands of GPUs for training all those open-source and open-weights models, no?

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
People forget, moving things around and funding them and making it all work is what makes an entrepreneur. Elon Musk did that and all great founders do that. Emad doesn't have to write the code himself.
zenlikethat 3y ago
Maybe… he certainly was good at taking credit for it. Not course if they stepped in, rebranded something they didn’t make and threw a bunch of AwS GPUs they couldn’t actually afford at it though https://petapixel.com/2023/06/05/so-many-things-dont-add-up-stability-ai-founder-accused-of-exaggerations/ https://petapixel.com/2023/06/05/so-many-things-dont-add-up-...
- throwaway11460 3y ago
  So where can I download that thing he took credit for?
  - ShamelessC 3y ago
    https://github.com/CompVis/latent-diffusion https://github.com/CompVis/latent-diffusion

anonylizard 3y ago

Emad had the genius idea of essentially paying for the branding rights to an AI model. This was viewed as insane in the pre-ChatGPT era, and only paid off massively in retrospect. Also all those 'controversies' were mostly the result of an aggrieved co-founder/investor who decided to sell their shares before SD1.4's success. Emad may not have proven to be competent enough to run an large AI lab in the long run, but those complaints are just trivial 'controversies'.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Eisenstein 3y ago
> This was viewed as insane in the pre-ChatGPT era, and only paid off massively in retrospect. Paid off how?
- throwaway11460 3y ago
  Perhaps the hundreds of millions in VC investment and company value?
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that if a company gets a valuation because of an investment, that creates value?
    - baobabKoodaa 3y ago
      They are saying it was not clear "buying branding rights to an image model" would lead to any investments, any kind of high valuation, or any other financial success. It is only clear in hindsight.
    - l33tman 3y ago
      How would you otherwise define value, except the value that someone is willing to assign to a share of a company or goods when purchasing? Value can go up and down though..

spxneo 3y ago

wow I did NOT know this I wonder how many ppl among VC/PE circles are also sugar coating their experiences and successes

dpflan 3y ago
It's the game to play. Asymmetric information with the goal to attain wealth, influence, power, ego-stroke, whatever opportunity is present.

_xivi 3y ago

> What he is good at is taking other people’s work and putting his name on it, or doing stuff that you can’t check if it’s true. I have to say, this is a quite common ignorant statement that's said about almost every CEO. I'm not sure if there's more to it in this particular case, but no, CEOs aren't stealing your work. Similarly, marketers aren't parasites. Designers aren't there to waste your time. Many engineers seem to hold similar belief that others are holding them down or taking advantage of their work. This is just a congnitive bias.

subtra3t 3y ago
Not surprised at all to see how unpopular this sentiment is on HN. For some reason HN seems to love one dimensional stereotypes for every job that isn't theirs. Actually that's wrong, even the idea that engineers are smarter than managers is very prevalent here.
baobabKoodaa 3y ago
Emad jumped on the train after the major inventions were invented and PoCs were made. He could not have contributed to them unless he had a time machine. (Yes he contributed to the training costs of SD1.4 but the time point when he made the decision was not early research.)
- _xivi 3y ago
  Sorry I'm not well versed in the story and it's still not clear to me what he did wrong. Where is the controversy here? Is the CEO expected to contribute to research? there seems to be some context I'm missing
  - baobabKoodaa 3y ago
    You made a point about devs underappreciating the work of other professionals, like CEOs and designers. You made this point in the context of Emad and the success story that is Stable Diffusion. The implication in your point is that Emad surely contributed to the success, even though the CEO is not a developer or researcher. My counter to your point is that Emad wasn't there when the inventions were made. He joined the party after success was already evident. Emad's main contribution to the success of Stable Diffusion is that he funded the training of a large model. That's great, but this thing would've happened with or without him. The inventions were made before he funded the training of SD1.4. If Emad had been supporting the research team from the beginning, one might argue that he created the conditions for their success, or whatever. But he wasn't there at that time. None of this is related to whatever Emad is accused of. I'm just making a point about how we attribute contribution for success.

barrkel 3y ago

FWIW, Rombach and Esser, the two guys behind the original model, gave some appreciation for Emad on Twitter just now.

jack_riminton 3y ago

An Oxford MA is confusingly what you automatically a few years after leaving undergrad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(Oxford,_Cambridge,_and_Dublin) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts_(Oxford,_Cambri... So there's that

seydor 3y ago

Thats a hit piece, but whatever, isn't that what the most prominent/funded academics do? As far as i know he is known generally as CEO of the company that makes SD, not as the creator of SD. It does look like without him these models wouldnt have evolved so much