Fidji Simo, chief executive officer of Instacart Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg Studio 1.0 interview in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Thursday, March 3, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s product and business chief, announced several leadership changes on Friday and revealed she is taking a significant medical leave because of a worsening neuroimmune condition.
OpenAI hired Simo in May, and her condition, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or POTS, relapsed a few weeks before she started in the role. She told staffers in a memo on Friday that the past month has been “particularly rough health-wise,” and she decided she needs to take several weeks off to recover.
“For my entire time here, I’ve postponed medical tests and new therapies to stay completely focused on the job and not miss a single day of work,” Simo wrote in the memo, which was viewed by CNBC. “I took time off for the first time two weeks before the break for some medical tests, and it’s now clear that I’ve pushed a little too far and I really need to try new interventions to stabilize my health.”
In an interview with CNBC in March, Simo said she was diagnosed with POTS in 2019, and she saw more than 40 specialists as she tried to understand her condition. Patients with POTS have difficulty keeping their blood pressure steady, which can cause symptoms like dizziness, fatigue and chest pains, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The condition can be challenging for health-care providers to diagnose.
Simo joined OpenAI after serving as CEO of Instacart, and she previously spent more than a decade in a number of leadership roles at Meta.
OpenAI President Greg Brockman will oversee product in Simo’s absence, she said. Simo also announced that Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer, will transition to a new role focused on “special projects.” He will report directly to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Denise Dresser, the company’s chief revenue officer, will take over most of Lightcap’s responsibilities and report directly to Simo. Dresser will not oversee Lightcap’s government or OpenAI for Countries work, which is now being folded under the company’s strategy organization.
Additionally, Simo announced that Kate Rouch, OpenAI’s marketing chief, has decided to step down to focus on her cancer recovery. Rouch was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer roughly a year and a half ago, right after she stepped into her role at OpenAI.
“I love this job. I love this team. Which is exactly why I didn’t step away and did both — lead at OpenAI while going through intense cancer treatment,” Rouch wrote in a post on LinkedIn. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. At a certain point, you have to be honest about your limits. I’ve reached mine.”
Simo said Rouch will return to a more narrowly-scoped role when her health allows, and OpenAI will lead a search for her replacement.
“We have a strong leadership team focused on our biggest priorities: advancing frontier research, growing our global user base of nearly 1 billion users, and powering enterprise use cases,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement. “We’re well-positioned to keep executing with continuity and momentum.”
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