OpenAI names Instacart's Fidji Simo to run business side
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Instacart CEO Fidji Simo in Sept., 2024. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Instacart CEO Fidji Simo will join OpenAI in the new role of CEO of applications, reporting to CEO Sam Altman, the company announced late Thursday.
Why it matters: OpenAI's move suggests the company is preparing to take on ad industry leaders Google and Meta as AI redraws tech's business map.
Catch up quick: Simo joined OpenAI's board last year as it reconstituted itself in the aftermath of the firm's firing of Altman in November, 2023.
- She made her name at Facebook, where she rose over a decade to become head of the Facebook app from 2019 to 2021.
- After becoming Instacart's CEO, she took the company public in 2023.
Simo will oversee OpenAI's product side as well as its operations and finance, leaving CEO Sam Altman to focus on strategy, research and safety.
- Altman will concentrate on "ensuring we build superintelligence safely and with the infrastructure necessary to support our ambitious goals," he wrote in a letter to employees that he posted Wednesday night.
- "This organization has the potential of accelerating human potential at a pace never seen before and I am deeply committed to shaping these applications toward the public good," Simo said in a statement.
The big picture: OpenAI has sought for the past year to disentangle its complex nonprofit structure so it can raise money and perhaps eventually go public.
- It has also begun to distance itself from key investor Microsoft as it raises enormous amounts of money to fund its growth and expensive research.
- This week it announced that its nonprofit board would remain in overall control of the for-profit entity that runs ChatGPT — but that unit will transition from its current form, which limits investors' profits, to a more conventional public benefit corporation structure.
Between the lines: OpenAI has made big promises of revenue growth, and to deliver them it will likely need to expand from subscription and B2B income to advertising, which it has not yet tapped.
- Simo's appointment looks like a key move in that direction.
Thought bubble, from Axios' Sara Fischer: Simo, an underrated figure in the tech industry, was the product guru behind the development of the Facebook app and its highly-successful advertising platform. She helped make Instacart one of the biggest retail ad businesses outside of giants like Amazon and Walmart.
The intrigue: Simo is the second public company CEO to take a leadership role at OpenAI under Altman — Sarah Friar, who had been CEO of Nextdoor, became OpenAI's CFO a year ago.
