Fidji Simo Steps Down From OpenAI’s No. 2 Role

Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s second-in-command, is stepping down from her full-time position, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In a staff memo released Thursday, Simo explained that her medical leave has extended beyond initial expectations and proven more challenging than anticipated. She will transition to a part-time advisory role rather than continuing in her previous capacity. Simo joined OpenAI’s board of directors in 2024 and officially joined the company in May 2025 as CEO of Applications. This newly created position reported directly to Sam Altman, consolidating the company’s business and product operations under her leadership.

This organizational change was part of a broader reporting structure shift: COO Brad Lightcap, CFO Sarah Friar, and CPO Kevin Weil all began reporting to Simo, while Altman stepped back to focus on research, compute infrastructure, and safety initiatives.

Simo first revealed her health challenges in April, announcing she was taking medical leave due to a relapse of a neuroimmune condition. That same memo disclosed that Lightcap had moved into a new “special projects” role, while CMO Kate Rouch departed the company to focus on cancer recovery. Kevin Weil has since left the organization as well.

Before joining OpenAI, Simo served as CEO of Instacart from 2021, leading the company through its 2023 IPO. Prior to that, she spent over a decade at Meta, including leading the Facebook app team.

Simo’s permanent departure leaves Altman searching for a successor at a critical juncture: OpenAI is eyeing a possible IPO and racing to close the enterprise gap with Anthropic. She was widely viewed as a likely candidate to assume greater responsibility once the company went public, creating a significant leadership vacuum.

Simo primarily focused on expanding OpenAI’s consumer business. However, ChatGPT’s growth slowed late last year, missing internal revenue targets. This prompted the company to pivot more heavily toward coding tools, an area where it currently trails Anthropic.

TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI for additional comment.

OpenAI’s executive team appears lean for a company recently valued at $852 billion. Beyond Altman, Lightcap, Friar, and co-founder Greg Brockman (who also serves as president and oversaw product strategy during Simo’s absence), the leadership bench includes Denise Dresser. She joined in December as chief revenue officer, overseeing “global revenue strategy across enterprise and customer success,” according to a press release at the time.

It would not be surprising to see Dresser take on a broader role, given her previous experience as CEO of Slack for two years and 14 years at Salesforce, Slack’s parent company.

Simo’s departure occurs against another significant backdrop: OpenAI’s evolving approach to employee equity. In April of last year, the same month Simo joined, the company shortened its vesting cliff—the waiting period before new hires’ stock grants begin vesting—from the industry-standard 12 months to 6 months. Then, in December, OpenAI eliminated the cliff entirely for new hires, allowing equity to start vesting from day one.

Described internally by Simo as a way to empower employees to “take risks” without fear of losing equity if terminated early, this move came amid an escalating AI talent war. It reflects OpenAI’s aggressive spending to retain staff, with projected stock-based compensation reaching $6 billion in 2025 alone.

None of the aforementioned departures appear linked to compensation issues. Senior executives’ equity packages are typically negotiated individually and may have entirely different vesting terms.