Openai’s new CEO’s application for new CEO strikes outdated tone in first memorandum
Openai’s incoming application CEO Fidji Simo sent her first notes to employees on Monday and told employees that the tools they are developing “will provide more opportunities for any other technology in history.”
“If we do that, AI can be more powerful than ever,” Simo wrote, according to a copy of the Wired Memorandum. “But I also realize that these opportunities don’t magically come.”
Simo previously served as CEO of Instacart. Prior to that, she spent ten years at Meta, where she went from company news source to product manager to product owner for Facebook apps. Simo has been a member of the OpenAI Board of Directors for the past year. Simo said in the memo that she will start working as an Openai executive “in a few weeks.” She will report directly to CEO Sam Altman.
Simo’s main role is to lead the business and operations teams of startups, according to Altman’s announcement in May. She will be responsible for turning Openai’s research into viable products such as Chatgpt, APIs (which developers use to build their own tools on OpenAI technology) and enterprise tools, and secure high-profile business partnerships.
In the memo, Simo outlines her thoughts on how AI will affect knowledge, health, creative expression, economic freedom, time and support. She promotes common ideas that paint a rosy picture of AI: personalized AI mentors, better health data, more opportunities for creative expression, increased efficiency in automation, and AI-driven emotional support (a controversial topic).
“My business coach Katia has been transformative about my career and over the years, I joked with her that everyone needs a ‘katia’s pocket,” Simo wrote. “Personalized coaches have obviously retained some privileges, but now with chatgpt, many people can use it.”
The memo’s reading is not only a task statement for the application department, but also for Openai’s wider bet: it can build tools that are as personal and essential as search engines or smartphones. In the memo, Simo positioned Openai’s product as a huge equalizer, which undermined society’s barriers to knowledge, income and emotional clarity, although it remains to be seen whether it will actually do so.
“AI can respond to our specific level of understanding at a speed that suits us, compressing thousands of hours of learning into personalized insights provided in simple language,” Simo wrote. “It not only answers questions, it teaches us to ask better questions. It helps us build confidence in areas that once felt opaque or scary, growing personally and professionally.”
The memorandum also hints at Openai’s vision for emotional companions. In the closing ceremony, Simo wrote that AI coaches “can be used every day and leverage their full understanding of every aspect of life to help you support you and bring subconscious patterns into your consciousness.”
The idea is closely related to the rumored hardware device Openai, created by famous designer Jony Ive, which the Wall Street Journal reported that will “full understanding of the user’s surroundings and lives.” Altman didn’t shy away from frank claims that the company wanted to make AI similar to movies she, A lonely man just came out of a failed marriage and turned into a virtual companion named Samantha. Of course, this also makes Altman hot water, as critics point out that the film is more of a warning story than a business opportunity.
The memorandum is perfect for an Openai executive: optimistic and based on future commitments. Simo’s boss Altman is committed to coordinating some of the more futuristic ideas like Stargate and artificial general intelligence, and Simo will work to pair the complex research of startups with real tools for consumers.
“If AI can help people truly understand themselves, it may be one of the biggest gifts we have ever seen,” Simo wrote.
