Sam Altman’s right-hand woman at OpenAI, Fidji Simo, is stepping down from her full-time role after an extended medical leave – just as the artificial intelligence giant is gearing up for its IPO.
The No. 2 executive said on X that her medical issue, a neuroimmune condition, had worsened and her recovery timeline would be longer than anticipated.
“This has been one of the hardest decisions of my career, but my body left me no choice—my symptoms became as loud as I am stubborn,” she wrote.
The departure is the latest in a series of high-profile exits and changes at OpenAI.
Longtime chief operating officer Brad Lightcap stepped down from the post earlier this year, transitioning to a role focusing on “special projects,” the New York Times noted.
Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch left the company in the spring to focus on recovering from cancer, and research honcho Kevin Weil exited around the same time.
In an internal note Thursday, Simo said her product and business duties would be divided among President Greg Brockman, CFO Sarah Friar and Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Simo was key in ramping up OpenAI’s focus on building business-oriented coding tools after rival Anthropic pulled ahead in that market segment.
She also led early efforts to create OpenAI’s coding-focused “superapp,” which launched Friday, and cut costly side projects like video-generator app Sora.
She was set to become a part-time adviser to the company.
Simo had been tasked with accelerating ChatGPT’s growth and made her mark by introducing ads to the popular chatbot, as well as features such as health advice.
She’d been set to take on even larger roles after the company’s IPO, which is expected as soon as this year.
Simo joined last August, taking on many managerial responsibilities from Altman and overseeing the chief financial officer and chief revenue officer.
She said in April that she was taking medical leave, telling staff that her neuroimmune condition had worsened.
Simo said in her post on X that when she went on leave, people supported her for prioritizing her health.
“The truth is that I am only making this decision now because I failed to make it many times before,” she wrote.
Simo was previously the CEO of grocery-delivery app Instacart and was a top executive at Facebook.
That experience set her up to oversee OpenAI’s consumer-facing business.
ChatGPT’s growth sputtered late last year, leading to missed internal revenue goals.
In an effort to catch up to Anthropic, which has specialized in business-focused coding tools, OpenAI ramped up its own activity in that market segment.
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