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

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 ...