Instacart CEO Fidji Simo is joining OpenAI as Application CEO, the ChatGPT maker said on Thursday. Simo, already a board member at OpenAI, will transition out of Instacart over the next few months and join the AI company full-time later in the year.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he would continue in his role, overseeing verticals like research, compute and applications. Simo would directly report to Altman.
“Applications brings together a group of existing business and operational teams responsible for how our research reaches and benefits the world, and Fidji is uniquely qualified to lead this group. Serving as an OpenAI board member over the past year, Fidji has already contributed a great deal to our company. She will transition from her role at Instacart over the next few months and join OpenAI later this year,” Altman wrote in a blog post.
Simo would also help OpenAI in scaling “traditional” company functions, Altman said, but he didn’t provide further details.
Simo has years of experience with product management and monetization. Before joining Instacart in 2021, she spent more than a decade at Meta — leading the launch of ads on the News Feed; heading monetization for Facebook app, product development for Facebook Video; and helped build its advertising business. She exited Meta as head of the Facebook app. After joining Instacart, she helped take the company public in 2023.
In a post on X, Simo said she would stay on as chair of the Instacart board. In a letter to Instacart employees, she said a current member of the company’s management would replace her as CEO, and an announcement would be made soon.
“Joining OpenAI at this critical moment is an incredible privilege and responsibility. 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,” she said in a statement.
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AI, Commerce, Fidji Simo, Instacart, OpenAI, people moves
Ivan Mehta
Ivan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web. You can reach out to him at im[at]ivanmehta[dot]com
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