Emad Mostaque
Founder & CEO, Intelligent Internet. On 2 shows, 3 appearances, plus 3 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveauthor@emostaque ↗LinkedIn ↗ii.inc ↗Wikipedia ↗
Mostaque is best known as the co-founder and former CEO of Stability AI, which funded and popularized the open-source text-to-image model Stable Diffusion. After stepping down from Stability AI in March 2024 to pursue decentralized AI, he founded Intelligent Internet and authored the book The Last Economy.
2shows
3appearances
94statements
23resolved
12supported
8contradicted
52%fully supported
23said about them ↓ Everything Emad Mostaque said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Stability AI Has More Compute Available Than Microsoft or Google
“The reality is we have more compute available to us than Microsoft or Google.”
Mostak: Only 5 or 6 Foundation Model Companies Will Exist in 3-5 Years
“I think that there's only going to be five or six foundation model companies in the world in three years, five years.”
Mostaque: AI Will Eliminate All Outsourced Programming Jobs in India
“India, all of the outsourcing jobs in programming will go, because GPT-IV can go level three Google programmer exam and pass it.”
Mostaque: AI Will Build Software Automatically, Eliminating Human Coders
“Why would you need a human for that if the AI gets better and better at coding? Just tell it what you want. I want to create an app for 20 minute VC that has these features. Of course it will go and build it automatically. Where is the human coder in that?”
Mostaque: Only five or six foundation model companies will survive
“I think that there's only going to be five or six foundation model companies in the world in three years, five years. ... I think it's going to be us, NVIDIA Google, Microsoft OpenAI, and Meta and Apple probably are the ones that train these models.”
Emad Mostaque: Only 5 or 6 foundation model companies will survive
“I think that there's only going to be five or six foundation model companies in the world in three years, five years. I think it's going to be us, Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta, and Apple probably are the ones that train these models.”
Mostaque: Only 5 or 6 foundation model companies will exist in 3-5 years
“I think that there's only going to be five or six foundation model companies in the world in three years, five years. I think it's going to be us, Nvidia, Google, Microsoft OpenAI, and Meta and Apple probably are the ones that train these models.”
Mostaque: No AI models available today will be used in a year
“The reality is no models that are out today will be used in a year.”
Emad Mostaque: Why I Signed the Open Letter for an AI Pause
“The reason I signed that letter, because I think there's a six month pause to get all of our shit together before things go completely insane, and next year this is everywhere, and everyone's investing in everything, and it's just absolute chaos.”
Emad Mostaque: No Current AI Models Will Be Used in a Year
“The reality is no models that are out today will be used in a year.”
Mostaque: AI developers must stop pre-training models on uncurated internet data
“We've got to stop pre-training big models on all the crazy crap of the internet. And like, we've got to do it fast because this is coming like a train.”
Mostaque: Google will be a primary winner in the AI race
“Google will be one of the main winners here. They have the LLMs, they have the hardware.”
Mostaque: Value in AI is not in proprietary models or data
“The value is not in any proprietary models or data.”
Mostaque: Next year AI investment will be everywhere, causing chaos
“The reason I signed that letter, because I think there's a six month pause to get all of our shit together before things go completely insane, and next year this is everywhere, and everyone's investing in everything, and it's just absolute chaos.”
Mostaque: OpenAI prioritizes building utopian AGI over a commercial business
“No, they're building an AGI to turn the world into utopia. It's written in their path to AGI thing, that they think this can basically bring about utopia.”
Mostaque: AI will have a larger economic impact than COVID-19
“And so, like, I think this will be a bigger economic impact than COVID.”
Mostaque: 50% of All Code on GitHub Is AI-Generated
“50% of all code on GitHub is AI generated now.”
Mostaque: European policy will regulate all technology innovation out of Europe
“Because they're going to regulate all innovation out of Europe, and not embrace this technology to drive them forward.”
All Base Foundation Models Will Ultimately Open Source Their Pre-Training Phase
“So my take is that foundation models will all be open source for the deep learning phase.”
Emerging Market AI Systems Will Outperform the West Within Five Years
“I am certain that system will outperform anything in the West within five years.”
Only About 100 People Worldwide Possess Skills to Train Foundation Models
“There's only like a hundred people who can train models in the world. Like it's not really a science. It's more an art, like losses explode all over the place when you try to do something.”
Large AI Model Runs Should Be Registered Like Dual-Use Biological Weapons
“I think that a productive outcome of that regulation is anything above a certain level of flops needs to be registered similar to, well, bio weapons and things that have the potential for dual use.”
Small Hive Architecture AI Models Will Massively Outperform Large Monolithic Models
“I think that small models will outperform large models massively, like I said, the Hive model aspect”
The other half of the tape: Emad Mostaque's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 23 times in 6 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 22
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 23
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 22 mentions in 5 episodes 4 per episode
- Alex Lebrun: Why the EU's AI Regulation is a Disaster; How Zuck Prepares for Meetings | E1027 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Douwe Kiela: Why Data Size Matters More Than Model Size; Why Open Source Isn't Going to Win | E1032 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Richard Socher: The 3 Biggest Barriers to Building AGI; AI Startups vs Incumbents | E1050 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Christian Kleinerman: Do OpenAI and Anthropic Have a Sustaining Moat? Who Wins the AI Wars? | E1063 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Howie Liu: Decoding Airtable's $11B Valuation; The Impending AI Revolution in Enterprise | E1053 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Emad's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Intelligent Internet | 2 +3 | 70 | 47% 9/19 | full record on 20VC → |
 NO PRIORSLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Intelligent Internet | 1 | 24 | 75% 3/4 | full record on No Priors → |