Oct 18, 2021 · 37m · 20vc
20VC: Instacart CEO Fidji Simo on Why You Need Sponsors Not Mentors, Where Management Skills Align with Good Parenting & The First 100 Days as CEO at Instacart; The Challenges, The Surprises and The Next Chapter
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In this episode of 20VC, host Harry Stebbings interviews Instacart CEO Fidji Simo on her career journey from Facebook executive to leading Instacart. Simo shares critical insights on career sponsorship, high-stakes innovation, management aligned with parenting, and her future vision for grocery technology.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 28.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 1.6 Guest teaching 2.5 Guest disagreement 0.8 Harry pushing back 0.4
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 21:04 Premise rejection on career mentorship
Fidji explicitly reframes Harry's prompt by stating 'I'll challenge you on this a bit' and dismissing the traditional value placed on career mentors.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 5:24 Pressing on burnout and intense work ethicHarry gently pushes back on Fidji's relentless work ethic narrative by questioning whether burning the midnight oil has caused severe burnout.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 21:04 Explaining the critical difference between sponsors and mentorsFidji educates Harry and the audience on why women in particular are over-mentored and under-sponsored, explaining why active advocacy outweighs passive advice.
Harry holds his own ▶ 13:25 Probing on project lifecycle and sunsetting criteriaHarry demonstrates strong managerial insight by probing how leaders determine when to cut ambitious projects, setting up Fidji's core execution framework.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Life in France and Family Roots | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | Harry introduces Fidji's background in Sete, France, asking how her upbringing shaped her work ethic. He presses slightly on whether her relentless work ethic leads to burnout, to which she explains her passion and motherhood keep her balanced. | |
| Parenting and Management Style Alignment | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Harry asks how motherhood affected Fidji's management style and prompts her to share how she rose rapidly at Facebook. Fidji explains how she invented Facebook Stores over a Thanksgiving weekend to secure a job she wasn't qualified for on paper. | |
| Making Ambitious Bets and Leadership Under Pressure | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Harry asks about defining inflection moments and how leaders can foster psychological safety for ambitious bets. Fidji shares a vulnerable story about struggling with Facebook Watch and learning from a colleague that stressful leadership hinders performance. | |
| Inflexible Goals and Flexible Execution | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Harry asks insightful questions on how long to give failing projects and cites mutual friends praising Fidji's problem-solving skills. Fidji breaks down her decision framework of being inflexible on goals but flexible on execution paths. | |
| Hiring for Curiosity and Drive Over Experience | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Harry asks for practical hiring advice on choosing between experienced candidates versus hungry novices. Fidji advocates strongly for curiosity and drive, sharing how her chief of staff excelled through deep interview preparation. | |
| The Power of Career Sponsors Over Mentors | 2 | 5 | 4 | 1 | When Harry asks about her closest mentors, Fidji directly rejects the premise, asserting that career sponsors who put their reputation on the line are far more important than advice-giving mentors. She then details her transition to Instacart CEO. | |
| The First 100 Days as Instacart CEO | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Harry asks about her first 30 days as Instacart CEO and how transitioning to a public market CEO alters leadership. Fidji notes the importance of remaining focused on long-term strategy rather than quarterly public market pressures. | |
| Quickfire: Books, Circuses, and Nutella | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | In a lighthearted quickfire round, Fidji answers questions about books, Nutella, and recharging. She playfully jokes about preferring digital ads over physical billboards before speaking passionately about funding women's health research. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Simo Applied Her Core Management Frameworks to Parenting Her Daughter
“I built a lot of my management tools before I got pregnant. And so, in fact, I feel like I have applied a lot of my management tools on my daughter rather than the other way around.”
Simo Invented 'Facebook Stores' Over Thanksgiving to Land Her Facebook Job
“I spent my entire Thanksgiving weekend inventing a new product called Facebook Stores, which is very close to a product that we've launched recently called Facebook Shops, and I built all of the marketing materials around it.”
Simo Led Facebook Mobile Monetization When Consensus Said It Was Impossible
“I was put in charge of monetizing mobile kind of right after the IPO when no one thought that Facebook could monetize mobile.”
Fidji Simo: Leaders cannot solve hard problems during continuous bad days
“Fundamentally you are not going to crack a hard Problem on a series of bad days. You're going to crack a whole problem when you're absolutely at your best as a leader. And therefore you are inspiring people to be at their best.”
Fidji Simo: Her product launches averaged four to five iterations
“And a lot of the products that I launched, we went through, you know, four, five iterations of the product before we got the user need right.”
Simo: Leading Facebook app was like managing 25 wrapped companies
“Even at Facebook, when I was leading the Facebook app, you know, it's fundamentally 25 companies like wrapped into one.”
Simo: Micromanagement Signals Failed Strategy Communication or Bad Hiring
“When I end up having to dig into the details and It really means that this, one of these two things has broken down. Either I haven't really communicated the strategy in a way that empowers the team to make good decisions, or I just don't have the right people…”
Simo Hired Chief of Staff Based on Deep Preparation and Actionable Critique
“My chief of staff had come to the interview, having read everything about me, having already having a point of view on the things that I needed to change, the types of like challenges I would have. And you know, that totally convinced me way more than years of…”
Simo: Women Need Career Sponsors Who Open Doors, Not Just Mentors
“I don't think mentors are That's critical. I think sponsors are, and there's a very big difference there. I mean, mentors are the kind of people who sit down with you, have coffee, give you some really, really great advice, and kind of walk away. Sponsors are …”
Simo: Instacart will lead food relationship evolution over next decade
“And I really believe that it's a company that's going to be at the center of, as a relationship between people and food. Evolves over the next decade, whether it's through personalization, convenience, nutrition, and there's going to be just so many interestin…”
Simo: Instacart CEO role requires far more external focus than Facebook
“That's actually a kind of a big difference from my prior role, which was a lot more internally focused. This role is a lot more externally focused”
Simo: Mark Zuckerberg's Decision-Making Was Unaffected by Facebook's IPO
“And I think, you know, I went through this transition at Facebook when we went IPO and I had a great role model in Mark where, you know, his decision-making wasn't affected by being public. It was really all about how do we sell people best and how do we sell …”
Fidji Simo: 3 Million US Women Suffer From Unfunded Neuroimmune Diseases
“Three million women in the US are suffering from neuroimmune diseases, and no one seems to care. Time to fund research and time to find a cure.”
Simo: Instacart will empower local grocers to compete with Amazon
“And I think it means that we will have helped our retail partners really compete against Amazon and we'll have Given them all of the technology tools so that they remain at the center of local communities and allow local communities to thrive.”