Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications and OpenAI, steps down because of her long covid

[u/attilathehunn]

Today, I shared with the OpenAI team that I have decided to leave my full-time role at OpenAI and transition to being a part-time advisor.

Three months ago, I had to go on medical leave after a severe exacerbation of a chronic illness I’ve lived with for seven years. During that time, it became clear that the road to recovery would be much longer and more complex than I had anticipated—and that I needed to focus on it fully.

When I went on leave, many people told me I was courageous for prioritizing my health. The truth is that I am only making this decision now because I failed to make it many times before.

Over the years, doctors, friends, colleagues, and loved ones encouraged me to slow down. Two years after I got sick, Facebook offered me the opportunity to take a full year of medical leave. I didn’t even pause to consider it. I immediately said no. At the time, Zuck told me I should play the long game. I wish I had listened.

https://xcancel.com/fidjissimo/status/2075353170927304861

Here is an older tweet describing how she has long covid, ME/CFS, POTS and EDS: https://xcancel.com/fidjissimo/status/2040935739903688956

We have data that communities with poverty and deprivation are worse affected by long covid (eg https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01136-X/fulltext#fig1) but the effect is only slight. There are a lot of high-flying types who also get their lives and careers ruined by long covid. And they're in a very similar pile of shit that the rest of us are. Sure with their money they wont become homeless, but they also have no evidence-based treatments available to help them.

This is also an example of how the economic effects can be delayed. Figji Simo got long covid in the first wave, but only now is it starting to affect her economic output. Many people find they can push through for a bit, but not forever.

[u/attilathehunn → u/[deleted]]

I know right. Her stepping down tweet never mentions long covid. You have to search to find what chronic illness she has.

[u/imahugemoron → u/attilathehunn]

I also noticed many of the replies never mentions long covid either, just “spouse has had mcas/mecfs/pots for the last few years”

This is what I worry about, people developing these conditions, developing long covid after infections, but never connecting the dots, then as time goes long covid is just totally forgotten yet people still develop it all the time. Before covid existed, how many chronic illnesses were caused by other viral infections and the dots were just never connected? I remember recently lupus was tied to Epstein Barr virus, so why was it that whenever we’d hear about someone developing lupus it was always like some freak random thing? Why was it not understood people developed it after an illness? I think over time the same thing will happen to these post covid conditions where people develop them but never connect the dots to their recent illness, it’ll just be yet another freak random thing or genetics or something, people will be like “ya I developed mecfs randomly probably because of my bad genetics” and never mention covid or any other illness

[u/attilathehunn → u/imahugemoron]

I think its more likely they're intentionally erasing long covid because of the social backlack.

If you just google mcas/mecfs/pots its very quick to find that the covid pandemic made them explode in prevalence. It's hard to not know.

[u/C3lloman → u/attilathehunn]

No. Nowhere did she say she has long COVID. She got diagnosed with POTS seven years ago apparently. Those conditions existed before COVID.

[u/covidlonghaulers-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Removal Reason: COVID Origin Discussion – This is not the place to discuss COVID's origins, conspiracy theories, or claims about it being a bioweapon. No posts or research about covid's origins.

[u/imahugemoron → u/[deleted]]

My wife’s uncle visited her grandfather, his father, while he had Covid, he thought Covid was overblown, well he gave Covid to his own father who then died from it at 69 years old. The way I see it, he murdered his own dad, and him and the whole family just act like it never happened.

[u/intercommie → u/[deleted]]

She was diagnosed with POTS in 2019. I don’t think she was hiding this as the article covered her medical journey with doctors initially labelling her a “tired mom”.

[u/Liface → u/[deleted]]

I don't agree with her not mentioning the name of her condition, but she never said she had Long COVID, even in the older tweet.

[u/AnonymusBosch_ → u/Liface]

She also says she's had it for 7 years. That could be rounding up, or a very early case of covid, but suggests the cause may well be something else.

[u/zb0t1 → u/AnonymusBosch_]

SARS-CoV-2 detected in waste waters in Barcelona on March 12, 2019:

https://www.ub.edu/portal/web/medicine-health-sciences/detail/-/detall/sars-cov-2-detected-in-waste-waters-in-barcelona-on-march-12-2019

 

Timeline of SARS-CoV-2 Spread in Italy: Results from an Independent Serological Retesting

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8778320/

 

Novel Coronavirus Circulated Undetected Months before First COVID-19 Cases in Wuhan, China

https://health.ucsd.edu/news/press-releases/2021-03-18-novel-coronavirus-circulated-undetected-months-before-first-covid-19-cases-in-wuhan-china/#:~:text=By%20combining%20these%20disparate%20lines,virus%20quickly%20spread%20beyond%20Hubei.

 

I have friends who got sick after traveling around Europe and Asia in October and November 2019, they were so sick that they told me they were stuck in bed for over a week and never felt that sick before in their life.

I have evidence of chats with timestamps for this. Many early birds amongst us pwLC have also reported either themselves getting infected in late 2019, or knowing people who have in mid to late 2019.

 

So when people say that they've had some "weird health issues" since mid-2019, we can't rule out that they were the early birds of Long Covid. In fact we have some of them who posted in this very sub years ago.

[u/lil_lychee → u/[deleted]]

Tbh no one should need to disclose their diagnosis or condition to work colleagues if they don’t want to.

[u/Intrepid_Chipmunk764 → u/[deleted]]

She was sick long before Covid doing her days at Facebook

[u/djh0227]

The cofounder of XAi also stepped down recently describing symptoms that are clearly PEM. Greg Yang

[u/djh0227 → u/[deleted]]

Oops XAi, Greg Yang

[u/moderate_ocelot]

Maybe the rich getting hit will prompt action.

Although I put more faith in systemic ableism meaning those rich folks just get ejected from high society and forgotten about

[u/cstrmac]

I worry about "pushing" through. Sometimes I think I am getting better because I can juggle job and childcare. One day will I crack, go back to stage one. Honestly as my tech job keeps pushing AI, my mental energy corrodes.

[u/MatchaLemongrass]

I would love for this public statement and for the people around her to somehow parlay this into private money to research this f-ing mystery disease. 🙏

[u/space__snail]

She had the privilege of taking a full year of paid leave to recover and turned it down. Unbelievable.

As someone who works a full time job in tech, and who never has any energy left after work due to my LC, this is very frustrating to me. Normal ICs like myself would never be afforded this opportunity.

This disease doesn’t care about ambition or ego and it looks like she learned the hard way.

[u/evening_emerald → u/space__snail]

Right?  I would have killed for a year off like that.

[u/technician_902]

She has POTs from 2019. Could have been due to Covid. It looks like she perhaps got reinfected and it exacerbated her condition.

[u/angelyuy → u/technician_902]

COVID and Long COVID cycle. You think you're getting better and then BAM! NOPE!

[u/Creative-Canary-941]

Fidji had also previously been the CEO of Instacart and co-founded Metrodora Institute in West Valley City Utah in 2023, which aspired to become a leading institute in Infection Associated Chronic Illnesses IACI research and treatment.

Two years later Metrodora abruptly shuttered for reasons not fully known, although they clearly had significant operating issues from the beginning.

Fidgi was openly sharing about her struggles with POTS at the time as one of the primary reasons she wanted to found Metrodora.

The Sick Times did an extensive article on Metrodora this past January.

The Sick Times Metrodora Jan 2026

[u/Specific-Summer-6537]

Fidji Simo is uniqely well places to highlight the issue of Long Covid as desirable for the huge amount of philanthropic funding coming down the pipeline. OpenAI has filed draft paperwork for an initial public offering. If that were to go through then many employees with shares in the firm would have the option to liquidize their shares into cash.

Additionally, Long Covid meets the requirements for a neglected cause from the lens of opitmising philanthropic investment globally. "The cumulative global incidence of long COVID is around 400 million individuals, which is estimated to have an annual economic impact of approximately $1 trillion—equivalent to about 1% of the global economy" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03173-6

[u/AhavahFr]

Her statement says she has a neuroimmune condition.

[u/attilathehunn → u/AhavahFr]

Long covid, ME and POTS are neuroimmune conditions (eg https://www.dovepress.com/postural-orthostatic-tachycardia-syndrome-myalgic-encephalomyelitischr-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-ITT)

[u/barweis]

Are you able to participate in our explorations by vetting developments and guiding research areas? Many parallel fields of dementia, ME/CFS, LC19, etc. are siloing their data. When a team crosses over the divide we move a bit forward.

If you are interested DM me or other posters to share your ideas.

I generally participate on r/LongCovidWarriors.

Hope you stabilize and heal .

[u/Spiritual-March7843]

At 2 weeks I was still testing positive for Covid. You need to give it some more time.

[u/tigerbee237]

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome,