Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta’s decision to hire his replacement as the grocery delivery firm prepares a public stock debut surprised most of its employees and investors. The fact that Mehta’s replacement came from Facebook didn’t.
Fidji Simo, who is taking over Instacart after more than a decade at Facebook, will oversee a management team that includes several senior executives or key mid-level managers who previously worked at the social network. All told, Instacart has hired at least 55 engineers, product managers, recruiters, designers and data scientists from Facebook so far this year, according to a tally by The Information based on data on LinkedIn. Inside of Instacart, some employees joked amongst themselves on Thursday that Simo had already done the hard part of hiring a trusted team of product leaders from Facebook.
