Lazy Sam Altman Hires New OpenAI "CEO" to Do All the Work for Him Without Having to Resign

Shadow CEO

OpenAI has poached the CEO of Instacart for a fancy new gig — but there's something weird going on with her job description.

In a statement, CEO and cofounder Sam Altman announced that Fidji Simo, a former Facebook executive who took over at Instacart in 2021 and became an OpenAI board member almost exactly one year ago, would be the company's first-ever "CEO of Applications."

This announcement, which came just days after OpenAI was forced to drop its plans to go for-profit amid erstwhile cofounder Elon Musk's ongoing lawsuit against it.

It also comes less than 18 months after the turbulent couple of days that saw Altman's ouster and rapid reinstatement around Thanksgiving of 2023 — a brief power shift that could potentially be informing what's going on now.

Altman Alt

Though the statement itself is somewhat murky about Simo's role reporting directly to Altman, Bloomberg reports that her role as head of applications will alter the company's executive structure significantly, even as it frees the CEO up to focus more on strategy.

C-suiters like chief operating officer Brad Lightcap, chief financial officer Sarah Friar, and chief product officer Kevin Weil, for instance, will now report to Simo instead of Altman.

Altman, meanwhile, will remain CEO — though in a post on X, he seemed to suggest that he's taking something of a step back.

"In this new configuration," he wrote, "I'll be able to increase my focus on research, compute, and safety."

As tech reporter and noted AI skeptic Ed Zitron noted on Bluesky, Altman's self-attested new job description makes it sound a lot like he's stepping down.

"Okay so Fidji Simo, now the 'CEO of Applications at OpenAI,' will be the person that the CFO, COO and CPO report to," Zitron posted. "How is this not Sam Altman stepping back? What does a CEO do if it's not 'overseeing sales, marketing and finance'?"

Indeed, in the company's statement, Altman alluded to Simo taking over OpenAI's "'traditional' company functions to scale as we enter a next phase of growth" — though he didn't outline what exact functions he meant.

All told, it appears that Altman is calling the shots on this executive realignment — but with all the power struggle drama at OpenAI, it remains to be seen how long it will stay that way.

More on OpenAI: OpenAI Forced to Abandon Plans to Become For-Profit

The post Lazy Sam Altman Hires New OpenAI "CEO" to Do All the Work for Him Without Having to Resign appeared first on Futurism.