Emad Mostaque is a British-Bangladeshi entrepreneur and former hedge fund manager, best known as the founder of Stability AI, the company behind the groundbreaking image-generation model Stable Diffusion. Born on April 17, 1983, in Jordan to a Bengali Muslim family, he spent his early years in Bangladesh before moving to the United Kingdom at the age of seven. He later earned a degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Oxford.
Mostaque began his career in the hedge fund industry, where he spent over a decade focusing on oil trading and geopolitical advisory work. In 2019, he launched a startup called Symmitree, aimed at lowering technology costs for people in poverty, though the project was short-lived.
In 2020, he co-founded Stability AI, which quickly rose to prominence with the release of Stable Diffusion in 2022—a powerful AI tool that enables users to generate detailed images from text prompts. This innovation marked a major milestone in the field of generative AI.
In March 2024, Mostaque stepped down as CEO of Stability AI to focus on the development of decentralized AI models. He has been open about living with Asperger’s syndrome, ADHD, and aphantasia, a condition that prevents mental visualization. His unique background and vision have made him a prominent figure in the world of artificial intelligence.
