OpenAI drafts Instacart boss as CEO of Apps to lure in the normies

A B2B, API move this ain't, in our view

Instacart CEO Fidji Simo is leaving to become CEO of Applications at OpenAI, reporting directly to Sam Altman, the AI heavyweight announced on Thursday.

Altman will remain in charge of the GPT-maker and continue overseeing all major divisions, but he said bringing Simo on will allow him to increase his focus on research, compute, and safety systems, while she takes the lead on "enabling our traditional company functions to scale as we enter a next phase of growth."

Simo is no stranger to OpenAI, having served on its board of directors since early 2024. But her background leans heavily toward consumer tech, not enterprise tools. Prior to becoming CEO of the gig-economy-era grocery delivery company, she spent more than a decade at Facebook (later Meta), where she led development of the main Facebook app from 2019 to 2021.

Simo's experience could help OpenAI extract larger revenues from its costly R&D efforts sooner rather than later. OpenAI was projected to lose around $5 billion in 2024, despite generating $3.7 billion in revenue. In 2025, the outfit is reportedly targeting revenues of $12.7 billion.

The privately held AI behemoth has rolled out a number of new subscription services and products, including a $200/month Pro subscription, which includes access to its Deep Research functionality, in a bid to bolster its cash flow.

But hiring a consumer-focused product leader suggests a focus on end-users rather than businesses. While companies are certainly experimenting with AI and running pilots, major success stories are still scarce, and a recent survey by IBM found that three in four CEOs said that their AI pilots did not deliver the return on investment they expected.

Simo won't be jumping into the deep end just yet - she won't officially join OpenAI until later this year.

"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," Simo said in a canned statement.

Thursday's announcement comes just days after OpenAI abandoned its contentious bid to shed its nonprofit shackles. On Monday, the GPT-maker announced that while its for-profit subsidiary would transition to Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) as planned, its nonprofit parent company would remain in control.

As we reported last year, Altman had hoped to shift control away from the nonprofit to the PBC. However, that plan was met with a lawsuit from rival mode-builder Elon Musk and along with criticism from former employees and AI researchers, who wrote a letter to the Attorneys General of California and Delaware calling on them to investigate the firm. ®