At OpenAI, which is pursuing an initial public offering (IPO), a top executive who led the institutional sector for AI model sales and other businesses has stepped down.
Fidji Simo, OpenAI institutional sector chief executive officer (CEO) who was on sick leave due to health reasons, said on the 9th (local time) on the social networking service (SNS) X (formerly Twitter), "The path to recovery has turned out to be much longer and more complicated than I expected," and stated accordingly. After serving as vice president (VP) at Facebook (now Meta) and CEO of Instacart, she joined OpenAI, where she oversaw the work of developing OpenAI's business model.
CEO Simo took sick leave in early April to treat postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a hard-to-cure chronic illness. In the end, she did not return to her original post and resigned after three months. POTS is an autonomic nervous system disorder in which the pulse becomes abnormally fast upon standing, and there is currently no clear treatment.
She recalled that when she learned of the onset while working at Facebook, she was encouraged by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to "take a year of sick leave," but she declined, adding, "Zuckerberg said at the time that I should take the long view, and I should have listened then."
CEO Simo said, "This (resignation) decision was especially difficult because my role at OpenAI felt like every step in my career had been building toward that point." She went on to note that treating disease is the most important thing AI can achieve, and emphasized that through this experience her conviction about the importance of AI development has become even stronger.
Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, said on X, "I am truly heartbroken by this news," and "We all hope for a swift recovery."
Even after resigning, CEO Simo will transition to a part-time adviser role to advise at OpenAI. As during her sick leave, the duties Simo had overseen will be shared by President Greg Brockman, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Sarah Friar, and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) Jason Kwon.