OpenAI Acquires Testing Platform Statsig, Appoints its Founder as CTO of Applications

OpenAI announced yesterday that it was acquiring Statsig, a product testing platform founded in Bellevue, Washington, back in 2021. As part of the $1.1 billion deal, Statsig founder Vijaye Raji will become CTO of Applications⁠ at OpenAI and report to Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications. Raji will head product engineering for ChatGPT and Codex as OpenAI continues working on its “next generation of products.”

“Vijaye has a remarkable record of building new consumer and B2B products and systems at scale,” wrote Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications, OpenAI. “He’s joining at a time when our models are opening entirely new ways to build, and his leadership will help turn that progress into safe applications that empower people with many new tools to improve their lives, help companies increase their impact and allow developers to build faster and better products.”

Raji previously spent 10 years at Meta where he oversaw the development of Facebook’s video and gaming products. He later founded the Statsig platform to help companies like OpenAI test and ship products using A/B testing, feature flagging, and more.

While OpenAI’s acquisition of Statsig is still subject to regulatory approval, the company will continue to operate independently once it becomes part of the ChatGPT maker. “We’ll take a measured approach to any future integration, ensuring continuity for current customers and enabling the team to stay focused on what they do best,” OpenAI said in the press release announcing the acquisition.

In other OpenAI-related news, the company also announced yesterday that it was working to improve how its models respond to signs of mental and emotional distress. The company is partnering with physicians, clinicians, and researchers to guide its work to make ChatGPT more helpful for everyone. New parental controls will also start rolling out within the next month. They will allow parents to control how ChatGPT responds to their teen, disable features like memory and chat history, and be notified when conversations with the chatbot suggest a state of “acute distress.”