Fidji Simo's push to make OpenAI profitable

Fidji Simo, the former Instacart CEO and longtime Meta executive, became OpenAI’s head of product in August and now oversees nearly two-thirds of the company. Tasked with turning one of the world’s most popular products into a sustainable business, she must balance product strategy with the company’s research mission while reporting to CEO Sam Altman.

OpenAI faces heavy financial pressure as it scales: projections of massive startup losses have circulated, and the company disputes some of those figures. Competitors such as Anthropic and Google have begun to close gaps in areas like coding, prompting Simo to prioritize enterprise users and productivity to shore up revenue while the company explores monetization options including ads.

Since joining, Simo has reorganized leadership roles, recruited senior executives from big tech, and strengthened ties between research and product through the post-training team.

fidji simo, openai, sam altman, enterprise users, monetization, ads, post-training, research, profitability, anthropic