OpenAI has announced the appointment of Fidji Simo as its Chief Executive Officer of Applications.
The announcement was made by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in an internal message shared with staff on Wednesday and later published on the company’s blog.
Simo will report directly to Altman and is expected to join later this year, after transitioning out of her role at Instacart.
What the role entails
Sam Altman said Fidji Simo will lead the Applications division, which unites OpenAI’s business and operational teams, and will focus on scaling the company’s core functions.
“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,” he said.
Her appointment is aimed at scaling OpenAI’s “traditional” company functions as the organization enters a new phase of growth.
“In her new role, Fidji will focus on enabling our ‘traditional’ company functions to scale as we enter the next phase of growth,” Altman stated
- Simo will take over the leadership of key executives currently working across OpenAI’s business functions.
Fidji Simo called her appointment a great privilege and emphasized her commitment to using OpenAI’s technology to benefit society.
“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
Background
Fidji Simo, a seasoned executive, is transitioning from her leadership role at Instacart, where she has served as CEO for four years.
- Prior to her tenure at Instacart, Simo had a significant career at Meta Platforms Inc., where she served as Vice President and Head of the Facebook app.
- In addition to her work in tech, she co-founded the Metrodora Institute, a medical clinic focused on neuroimmune disorders.
Sam Altman, the current CEO of OpenAI, will continue to lead the company’s focus on Research, Compute, and Safety Systems, with Simo taking over many of the startup’s day-to-day operations, including finance.
Change in operations
This reorganization is part of OpenAI’s ongoing efforts to scale its operations as it continues to navigate the complex AI landscape.
Sam Altman explained that OpenAI has evolved from its original mission as a research lab into a broader organization that now functions as a global product company, an infrastructure provider, and a growing nonprofit entity.
Over the past two and a half years, the company has expanded its scope to serve hundreds of millions of users worldwide, built the systems that power its AI tools, and begun operating one of the largest nonprofit initiatives in the sector.
