No Priors Ep. 22 | With Instacart CEO Fidji Simo

(music plays) Welcome to No Priors. Today, we're speaking with Fidji Simo, the CEO of Instacart, the leading grocery technology company, and co-founder of the Metadora Institute, whose mission is to cure neuroimmune access disorders. She's also the former leader of the Big Blue App, Facebook. Instacart is transforming the way we shop, making it possible for millions of busy people to get the groceries they need from the retailers they love. We're really excited to explore Fidji's refounding of Instacart, their use of AI, and the impact of AI on commerce and healthcare. Fidji, welcome to No Priors.

Thanks for having me, Sarah and Yared.

Let's start with some personal background. You've been a, uh, star leader in technology for a long time, from strategy at eBay to meteoric rise, um, to product and eventually beloved leader of Facebook, and now CEO of Instacart. That is a wide range of different things. What's driven your career decisions?

Well, that's a- that's a hard question to start with. I think it sounds cliché but it was all about where could I have impact on problems I deeply cared about. And, uh, I always say that I am a pragmatic technologist. And what I mean by that is that I love technologies that solve real problems for real people, and, uh, eBay was a good example of that. You know, when I joined the company, uh, I was kind of in love with this idea of like all of these, like, communities of collectors exchanging goods but really exchanging their passion, and I- I was fascinated by that. And then, you know, my transition to Facebook was very similar. I was an immigrant in the US and I was starting to see that it was so much easier to stay in touch with my family, uh, back in France thanks to Facebook. And then transitioning to Instacart was kind of similarly about the mission. You know, I thought the idea of connecting people, uh, to the retailers they love so that they can enjoy, uh, the foods they love and- and spend more time with their family was so critical, and food is, you know, one of the most important things in our lives. And so it felt like I could have a big impact there as well.

Yeah, amazing. Um, I, uh, remember what an impression you made on me when we first met when you were at Facebook. Like, you are very French, you wear lipstick and heels, um, you've led some of the most iconic products and companies in the tech world, but you don't, uh, subscribe to some of the, let's say, Silicon Valley monoculture, and you were clearly very conscious of that. Like, why is that important to you? Or how do you think about, um, like, cultural image and how you present as a leader?

Well, you know, (laughs) um, I've been French since I was born. (laughs) I have been, uh, wearing lipstick and high heels since I was 12. So, it is such a big part of me that it was never a conscious decision, it was just about being me. And then when I arrived in Silicon Valley, a lot of people were commenting on that, and I was, like, really surprised because, you know, that was just me being me. And they were telling me, "Well, you know, especially as you move into product development, you really need to blend in with the engineers, so, like, remove the makeup, tie up your hair, start wearing a hoodie." And I did that for one day at Facebook. No one recognized me. I would pass in the hallways, no one would say hi.