Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Thursday, May 8th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today. OpenAI has hired Instacart's CEO to be kind of a CEO. Apple reveals the degree to which AI might be eating into Google search. Why aren't people seeing a return on their AI investments quite yet? And my dream grid gadget is finally coming to the U.S.

Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

OpenAI has hired Instacart CEO Fiji Simo as CEO of Applications, still reporting to Sam Altman,

who says he will remain CEO overall and focus on research, compute, and safety.

Quoting Fortune, Altman said that Simo, who has been serving on the board of the nonprofit

that controls OpenAI for the

past year, will be in charge of its new applications division that combines two existing

groups within OpenAI that build and market its products and support its commercial

operations.

Simo is expected to remain at Instacart for, quote, a few months, while its board finds a successor,

according to Altman's message to OpenAI employees.

A veteran executive at Meta prior to becoming CEO of the delivery app,

Simo oversaw Instacart's initial public stock offering in 2023 and has led a major push to expand

its advertising revenue. The company's stock has risen 52% since the IPO surpassing the

NASDAQ's 30% increase over the period. It's unclear how OpenAI's

investors will react to the move, which comes just days after OpenAI said it would abandon

efforts to have its non-profit board no longer control the for-profit arm of the company.

While Simo is highly respected in the tech industry, her hiring may raise questions about Altman's

focus and perhaps even how long he will

remain at the helm of the company. Many open AI backers, including Thrive Capital's Josh Kushner

and SoftBanks Masayoshi Son, have said that their decision to put billions of dollars into the

fast-growing AI startup was driven as much by their admiration for Altman's vision and ambition

...