chairman, says he chose to step aside
because he recognized that Simo
“will be way better as a leader...with
product, with people, and with dif-
ferent types of challenges.” But the
turbulent transfer of power sparked
speculation that Mehta was forced
to step down; few venture-backed
founders voluntarily relinquish the
CEO title ahead of an IPO.
The company is now preparing to
go public, insiders say, and is relying
on Simo’s management experi-
ence and tech expertise to expand
its scope and product lineup. The
new CEO pitches a lofty future for
Instacart as a larger middleman up
and down the food supply chain; a
Shopify/Amazon/Facebook hybrid
that will sell tech, ads, and data
services to enterprise customers
while speeding up its consumer-
facing delivery options. She’s eyeing
international markets, including her
native Europe, and she’s considering
ways to make Instacart more like a
social media platform where users
can follow celebrities (or each other)
and shop for items that an influencer
or friend recommends.
But most immediately, Simo is
focused on adding tech capabili-
ties and shoring up existing part-
nerships. Instacart this summer
enlisted robotics provider Fabric to
build automated warehouses so the
company can fulfill delivery orders
faster. It also signed deals to provide
more delivery services to customers
of Kroger and Walmart.
Simo has sketched out an ambi-
tious expansion of Instacart’s adver-
tising business, which the company
says is “growing at triple-digit rates.”
Instacart sells ads to consumer-
product companies that pay to be
“featured” at the top of a category
or search result. She hired longtime
friend and former colleague Carolyn
Everson, Facebook’s former global
ads chief, as Instacart’s president.
The pair say their expansion will bet-
ter serve retailers that don’t have in-
ternal ad data and tech capabilities.
“Everything we do is in partnership
with a retailer. We don’t compete
with them,” says Simo.
Some in the grocery industry still
worry that Instacart’s growing ads
business will cannibalize the ads
retailers themselves sell to consumer
packaged goods companies. For gro-
cers, “it becomes really difficult when
you’re not able to control the entire
revenue pie,” says Sylvain Perrier,
CEO of digital grocery platform
Mercatus, which competes with some
Instacart services. “The fear is that
retailers will be left on the way-
side.” He and his industry peers also
grumble that Instacart’s advertising
push plays to the strengths of Simo
and Everson, but highlights the lack
of senior retail experience on their
leadership team. Simo says, “As long
as you have the open- mindedness to
realize what you don’t know, and to
ask questions and ask for input, you
can ramp up pretty fast.”
But some Instacart shoppers,
essential workers who showed up
in person through the worst of the
pandemic, say she’s not addressing
their needs fast enough. On Sept. 20,
a group of Instacart shoppers called
for a customer boycott of the com-
pany over dwindling pay and worsen-
ing working conditions. The griev-
ances of the Gig Workers Collective,
which represents contract workers at
Instacart and other companies in thesector, predate Simo, but the group
hasn’t seen “meaningful actions”
from her so far, says Willy Solis of
Texas, an Instacart shopper and a
lead organizer with the collective.
Even considering she is a newcomer,
Simo’s answers “toe the line of what
Instacart has been doing for years,”
Solis says.
Last year, Instacart backed
California’s successful Prop 22 ballot
referendum that lets tech compa-
nies classify workers as independent
contractors rather than employees
with full benefits. Under Simo, the
company has supported a similar
ballot proposal in Massachusetts.
In an interview, Simo would not
address the collective’s complaints
directly but says, “There’s still a lot of
progress to make” to improve the ex-
perience of Instacart’s contract work-
ers. “This is a top priority for me.”
The boycott demonstrated that to
many of Instacart’s constituents, Simo
is already an insider. It also marked
the end of a summer spent working
from her Carmel home, where she
hosted meetings with grocery-store
executives and, for three days in early
September, eight members of her
senior leadership team.
With Willow headed to kinder-
garten, Simo and her family left
their dreamy pandemic retreat for
their other home in Silicon Val-
ley. But even as she returns to a
more pre-COVID routine and the
epicenter of tech, Simo is trying to
hold on to that outsider perspec-
tive. “I’ve built a lot of things in my
life, but I haven’t built a $40 billion
company,” she says. “I’m approach-
ing everything with curiosity and
humility, because I don’t have all the
answers.”It becomes really
difficult when you’re
not able to control
the entire revenue
pie. The fear is that
retailers will be left on
the wayside.”
SYLVAIN PERRIER
Mercatus CEO
Fidji Simo is one of the rising star execs on
Fortune’s 2021 40 Under 40. For the full list,
see fortune.com/40-under-40.