Fidji Simo steps down from OpenAI’s no. 2 role

Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s second executive, is stepping down from her full-time position. reports the Wall Street Journal.

In a staff note Thursday, Simo said her ongoing sick leave has proven longer and more difficult than expected, and she will instead transition to a part-time advisory role. Simo joined OpenAI’s board of directors in 2024 and joined OpenAI in May 2025 as CEO of Applications, moving into a newly created role reporting directly to Sam Altman who consolidated the company’s business and product operations.

That move was integrated into a broader reporting shift: COO Brad Lightcap, CFO Sarah Friar and CPO Kevin Weil all began reporting to her, while Altman stepped back to focus on research, computing and security.

Simo first went public with her health struggles in April, when she announced she was taking a medical leave of absence due to a relapse of a neuroimmune disease; In that same memo, it was publicly shared that Lightcap was assigned a new “special projects” role and CMO Kate Rouch leaving the company to focus on cancer recovery. Weil has also since left the company.

Simo came to OpenAI from Instacart, where she served as CEO since 2021 and led the company through its 2023 IPO. Before that, she worked at Meta for more than ten years, where she ran the Facebook app, among other things.

Simo’s decision to step back permanently leaves Altman looking for a successor, while OpenAI itself is eyeing a possible IPO and rushing to close the business gap with Anthropic. She was widely seen as a likely candidate to take on even more responsibility once OpenAI went public, making this a real void for CEO Sam Altman to fill.

Simo was primarily focused on growing OpenAI’s consumer business. But ChatGPT’s growth slowed late last year, missing internal revenue targets and leading the company to focus more on coding tools, an area where it has and continues to follow Anthropic.