Fiji Simo, CEO of Instacart, grew up in the French fishing port town of Sate and dreamed big from an early age.
“Growing up in a small town, it's the media that connects you to the world,” Simo told CNBC's Julia Bourstin in a recent interview ahead of launching the 2025 CNBC Changemaker list on February 24th. Ta. “American TV and the American Dream. Every night on TV, the American Dream. ”
Shimo obviously managed to reach her version.
After successfully running on Facebook, now Metathe 2024 CNBC Changemaker, who published Instacart as CEO and added Openai board position to her role, continues to excel in the tech industry and market where changes are constant.
The model of success developed by Simo relies on lessons learned from childhood.
She had to navigate the end of Instacart's Covid Boom, North America's largest online grocery market, and pushed her into new revenue sectors such as advertising.
Since the 2023 IPO, Instacart Stock I won over 70%.
In a recent interview with CNBC, Shimo talked about moving forward with technology and the role of gender in success.
When new technology threatens your business, the only option is to master it
She says the first innovator Shimo accessed in her life was her grandfather, a fisherman who had a complex map of local waters that she devised to win the competition to find a fish school. But early in the technological disruption, his business world was transformed with the introduction of sonar, allowing fishermen to find schools without the complex knowledge of water bodies and highly developed personal systems.
“He was an absolute expert,” Simo told CNBC in pencil and maps. But in Sonar he could have easily given up and, like many other businesses, accepted that technology was trying to exterminate him. He disagreed.
“His competitive advantage over other fishermen is gone, but rather than thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to be against technology,' he said, 'No, I'm really interested in this new machine.' He said. ”
Shimo spent a lot of time with her grandfather who built sonar machines, where other fishermen had used “to understand better than anyone else and build a greater competitive advantage.” He says he spent time with him.
It was “a deep lesson like this,” she says now.
“It's not just about your current skill set, but having a growth mindset that allows you to integrate technology and maintain your benefits at all times,” Shimo said.
Throw away the hoodie. Looking at some of the technology doesn't get the job done
Known for his immature fashion sense (not necessarily a surprise to French people whose mothers had boutiques), Shimo has climbed the industry ranks, and in the meta, he especially rose to the technological culture where Parker was “looking.” It had to. . ”
She was pressured to play an ostensible role and initially succumbed.
“In my career, people once said, 'If you really want to bond with an engineer, you need to get it in and wear a hoodie.' “Simo said. “I didn't try it for too long,” she added.
She told CNBC at one point that she even took a foreign accent reduction course. “It clearly didn't work,” she said.
Ultimately, she came in both the short and long versions of why she shouldn't wear a hoodie and why she should forget about her strong French accent.
“I don't know I can't become,” she said.
“At one point I realized I could try and be all my energy to become someone else, becoming myself and pour all that energy into what I could create,” she said. said. “And when you think of it that way, the answer becomes pretty obvious. That's not to say I'm trying to make a statement.”
Why Women Should Accept Mark Zuckerberg's “Masculine Energy”
Currently, the DEI program has been scrapped and Zuckerberg has been quite a bit of diversity initiatives in the market, including Mark Zuckerberg, her own former boss of Meta, who has recently been seeking more “masculine energy” in the workplace. There's a blow.
As a well-known female leader in male-dominated technology, you might think that is something Shimo opposes. However, she has a different view on hitting the right gender balance.
“I'm not in Mark's mind, but I think all I can tell you is that you need balance, both. The energy of men so that women can lead too. I think it needs to be,” Shimo said. “I have to make very difficult decisions every day. Sometimes I need some of the more masculine energy, some of that attack. That's fine, but a lot of the things we've talked about. Balance energy of value.
She had a message to consider putting it on Mark's head. “I think that applies to men too. I think they benefit from being able to express masculine energy. I also think it's great to balance it with some of the energy of women.”
According to Simo, the most important thing is to “ensure people can use all of these different tools and styles to achieve great results.”
Look at Julia Boursten's Complete video interview With Shimo.
