Carolyn Everson Instacart Departure Shows Trouble Ahead
#Instacart rocked last week with notice that their president Carolyn Everson, resigned after only 3 months.
The fact that Fidji Simo hired someone so close from her Facebook home I never considered a great idea to begin with.
The company is trying to find a new business model as it is challenged by others. They have first mover advantage so they are likely fine for a while, but they are still vulnerable to Amazon and Walmart in the medium term.
The other QuickCommerce players? goPuff is the one to worry about because they have scale others do not have.
Having so much focus on ONLY ads never made that much sense to me in the first place (they need ads and it's useful, don't get me wrong). Better to have a President with a #supplychain background in a category like this -- they already have quite a bit of advertising talent still there.
Without knowing anything, it also seems likely Carolyn Everson would go back to Facebook since the departure was so fast.
Either way, Fidji Simo inherited a somewhat troubled company, in terms of its long-term prospects. Expect more shoes to drop in the upcoming months. If they weren't valued so richly, you might even expect them to get acquired. Doesn't seem likely though.
