Instacart’s former CEO is taking the reins of a big chunk of OpenAI

Instacart’s former CEO, Fidji Simo, will start her new role as an OpenAI executive on August 18th, leading at least one-third of the company and reporting directly to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Simo will be “CEO of Applications,” tasked with scaling and growing the tech’s use cases. 

It’s a brand-new role, first revealed as part of Altman’s reorganization announcement in May. At the time, Altman wrote that he’d still oversee what he called the three pillars of OpenAI — research, compute, and applications — but that he would start to focus more on the research and compute side of things, including safety systems. Simo, on the other hand, will be more focused on product and growth.

In a memo to employees, which was also published on OpenAI’s blog, Simo wrote she was most excited for AI-led healthcare breakthroughs. She also wrote extensively about her belief in AI’s ability to help with career and life coaching, creative expression, time-saving, medical second opinions, regaining time, creative expression, and personalized tutoring.

Simo wrote that major technology trends can either expand access to power or “further concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few — usually people who already have money, credentials, and connections.” She wrote that the choices the company and AI leaders make now “will shape whether the coming transformation leads to greater empowerment for all, or greater concentration of wealth and power for the few.” 

Simo first joined OpenAI’s board in March 2024. Her appointment came at the same time as CEO Sam Altman regained his board seat, after an internal investigation of the lead-up to his ouster. 

OpenAI’s applications department “brings together a group of existing business and operational teams responsible for how our research reaches and benefits the world,” Altman wrote in May, adding that Simo’s role will focus on “enabling our ‘traditional’ company functions to scale as we enter a next phase of growth.”