David Stout

David Stout recalled growing up on a Michigan farm.⁠[1]

He attended Davenport University but left without graduating. He said a $400 loan from his grandfather helped start a web-services business that gained about 60 clients in its first year and later generated roughly $750,000 annually.⁠[2][3]

In The Startup Project interview, he described GhostHouse work on computer vision and low-power devices, followed by development of the WebFrame framework. That work informed the later platform strategy.⁠[4]

webAI dates its founding to 2019; Stout described the launch period as late 2019 into early 2020. He cofounded the business with Ethan Baird and Tyler Mauer and became CEO.⁠[5][4]

PennAITech listed Stout and Iris Technology among its 2022–2023 pilot awardees for AI-assisted fall detection and remote monitoring for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.⁠[6]

In the PennAITech newsletter, he described on-device detection as Iris Technology’s co-CEO, aiming to reduce data requirements, protect privacy and identify fall risks. These were research goals and technical proposals, not demonstrated clinical outcomes.⁠[6]

Published US patent application US20240112248A1 lists Stout, Ethan Michael Baird and Tyler Mauer as inventors. Publication of an application does not establish that a patent has been granted.⁠[7]

webAI announced completion of Series A financing at a $700 million valuation and added Michael Abbott, David Beirne and Dennis Durkin to its board. Its reported $60 million raised was cumulative since inception, not the size of that round.⁠[8]

The company appointed Jason Rathje its first president of public sector, supporting government adoption of AI running on owned infrastructure. Stout described the appointment as an expansion of its public-sector strategy.⁠[9]

In a signed article, Stout advocated networks of models that learn locally and collaborate securely, emphasizing modularity, federated learning and on-device operation. His prediction that this approach leads to more advanced intelligence is a technical vision.⁠[10]

He told The Startup Project that the company was building runtimes, frameworks and networking rather than a single industry application, emphasizing enterprise control over data and computing.⁠[1]

webAI and Springshot announced AI tools for airline ground-operations compliance, including checks using operational photographs, with Spirit Airlines an early user. Deployment and performance statements came from the partners.⁠[11]

webAI announced financing at a $2.5 billion pre-money valuation and launched Intelligence Labs under PJ Maykish. It named investors including Atreides, Forerunner and OXCART without disclosing the round’s size.⁠[12]

The public docket records removal of Behnam Kia and Alireza Behtash’s civil case against webAI, Stout and others to the Eastern District of North Carolina, case 5:26-cv-00205. Removal was not the initial filing.⁠[13]

School of Hard Knocks Podcast released an approximately 67-minute interview about Stout’s entrepreneurial beginnings, financing and AI business, framing its title around a $400 loan and company valuation.⁠[3]

The company described webAI Frontline as running models, documents and retrieval locally on an iPad for documentation-intensive work such as maintenance. Its stated features included offline use, local document handling and no per-question charge.⁠[14]

After an amended complaint, defendants filed a renewed dismissal motion and an August 28 reply. The earlier motion becoming moot did not dismiss the case; the available record showed no merits determination.⁠[13]

webAI announced a deployment partnership with Forge involving a $30 million commitment. This was an enterprise deployment and services arrangement, not a new equity-funding round or the similarly named private-market trading platform.⁠[15]

The company released TwIL LM3 Pro for local reasoning, describing approximately 3.66 billion parameters and a quantized version. Its noncommercial license limits use; available weights do not imply unrestricted commercial rights, and reported benchmarks were company evaluations.⁠[16]

webAI announced that its wholly owned public-sector subsidiary received an approximately $14.5 million fixed-price Army contract for Project ARIA, W15P7T26CA005, supporting on-device AI in communication-constrained settings. This was a company contract, not a personal award to Stout.⁠[17]

webAI’s $2.5 billion figure was a company pre-money valuation, not Stout’s personal net worth.⁠[12]

webAI: Official website: https://www.webai.com/ (opens in a new window). LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpstout (opens in a new window). The company lists Stout as cofounder and CEO; board chairman David Shuman is a different person.⁠[5][18]