OpenAI’s top executive, Fidji Simo, is stepping down

Fidji Simo, who served as second-in-command to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman before taking a medical leave in April, said Thursday that she will not return to work.

“Today I announced to the OpenAI team that I have decided to leave my full-time role at OpenAI and move to a part-time consulting position,” she said he said in a post on social media.

Ms. Simo joined OpenAI’s board of directors in March 2024 while serving as CEO of grocery delivery company Instacart. A year later, she left Instacart to become OpenAI’s first executive director of applications, tasked with overseeing the company’s engineering, product and business teams.

Her title was later changed to Executive Director of AGI Deployment, referring to artificial general intelligence, a theoretical technology that matches the capabilities of the human brain.

In April, Ms Simo took leave to deal with what was described as a chronic illness.

“It was clear that the road to recovery was going to be much longer and more difficult than I expected – and that I needed to fully focus on it,” she said in her post.

Ms. Simo (40) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Her departure adds to the number of OpenAI executives who have changed roles or left the company in recent months. The company confidentially filed for an initial public offering this year, but said it may not be ready to go public for several months.

Brad Lightcap left his longtime COO earlier this year to move into a new role focused on “special projects.” Kate Rouch said she is stepping down as marketing director in April to focus on cancer treatment. Kevin Weil, who oversaw scientific research after a brief stint as chief product officer, left OpenAI that same month.

(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, alleging copyright infringement for news content related to AI systems. Both companies denied the claims.)