San Francisco – September 3, 2025 – As part of the most ambitious rollout in company history, OpenAI announced today its acquisition of product-testing startup Statsig in a deal that consisted entirely of stock and was based on an estimated value of $1.1 billion. With this acquisition, the company is also moving through radical management changes that will help to further focus the company on applications, science, and business.
The deal is a significant milestone in the evolution of OpenAI from a lab focused on research to a global technology company with a burgeoning commercial operation. With its valuation upward of $300 billion, the company is doubling down on growth, creating new product divisions and pouring resources into tools that speed up innovation.
The Deal in Detail
Founded in 2021 by Vijaye Raji, Statsig is best known for its feature experimentation platform. It offers products such as:
- A/B testing
- Feature flagging
- Analytics
- Session replay
- Decision insight tools
The startup rapidly signed up prominent customers such as Atlassian, Notion, Brex, Bloomberg — and even OpenAI itself.
The deal, valued at $1.1 billion, is on par with Statsig’s latest funding valuation. Rather than cashing out entirely, investors are taking shares in OpenAI, betting that the future trajectory of the company is up. For OpenAI, the deal is not only a financial transaction but a strategic one, adding expertise that can help it test, refine, and scale new products at unprecedented rates.
OpenAI already has a revenue run rate that is “off the charts,” with the company booking $12 billion in revenue in the first seven months of this year and targeting $20 billion by the end of 2025. Statsig’s software could help keep that momentum going by making the company’s product pipeline more efficient and data-based.
A Leadership Shake-Up
The purchase comes with a major shake-up at the top of OpenAI. A number of important executives are taking new posts, a sign that the company wants to fit its leadership to its growing portfolio.
- Vijaye Raji, the chief executive and founder of Statsig and a former engineering leader at Meta, will join OpenAI as Chief Technology Officer for Applications. In that new role, he’ll be in charge of product engineering for consumer-facing tools like ChatGPT and Codex, and future applications that send AI further into everyday life.
- Raji will report to Fidji Simo, who was newly appointed as CEO of Applications at OpenAI. Simo was previously CEO of Instacart, and he will be responsible for growing OpenAI’s consumer products, and keeping them on the edge of usability and penetration.
- OpenAI’s Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil will transition to head OpenAI for Science in the role of Vice President. The new division is all about using AI as a way to speed scientific discovery and will partner with leading researchers to solve tough problems in medicine, physics, and more.
- Srinivas Narayanan, formerly the head of engineering, has been promoted to CTO of B2B Applications, where he’ll work on business and government customers. He will work closely with the Chief Operating Officer, Brad Lightcap, to extend OpenAI’s reach into the business world.
Together, these shifts make up a three-pillar leadership model:
- Consumer apps under Simo and Raji
- Science under Weil
- Enterprise services under Narayanan
This shifting of duties signals OpenAI’s aspiration to grow in a few different dimensions at once.
Why Statsig Matters
The biggest strength of Statsig is its culture of experiments and velocity. Its platform helps businesses deploy features, measure performance, and learn and iterate in real-time.
For OpenAI, which is working to deliver reliable, safe, and useful AI to billions of people, this ability is priceless.
“By bringing Statsig in-house, OpenAI is able to be less dependent on third-party systems, and also give its own teams and offices the highest quality engineering infrastructure for rapid iteration.”
The philosophy of rapid testing and refinement, central to Statsig’s success, is also key to OpenAI as it scales products like ChatGPT while launching wholly new offerings.
Crucially:
- Statsig will maintain its independence from its Seattle base.
- Its current suite of products will remain available to existing clients.
- Employees will have the option to join OpenAI, though the startup’s culture and operations will be maintained.
This balance is designed to safeguard Statsig’s competitive advantage while embedding its tools into OpenAI’s ecosystem.
A Cultural Shift
What stands out about Vijaye Raji is not only his technical vision but also his leadership philosophy.
At Statsig, he required all employees to work in the office five days a week, even as much of the tech industry emphasized remote work. His thesis: close collaboration drives speed and creativity.
As he begins the job at OpenAI, Raji’s perspective could influence the culture of the applications division. His focus on speed, experimentation, and team cohesion reflects OpenAI’s push to ship products quickly while upholding high standards of safety and usability.
Raji himself described the move as a rare opportunity:
“Building the future of AI is a rare opportunity and it’s thrilling to be able to do it with the tools and principles that made Statsig so effective.”
Strategic Implications
OpenAI’s acquisition of Statsig, along with its leadership reorganization, signals several key strategic shifts:
- Fast Innovation – Statsig’s platform enables quicker transitions from idea to prototype to launch.
- Sharper Leadership – Splitting applications, science, and enterprise into clear divisions reduces bottlenecks.
- Broader Market Reach – OpenAI expands simultaneously across consumer, scientific, and enterprise markets.
- Stronger Competitive Position – Statsig brings not just technology but credibility from its high-profile client base.
- Seamless Integration – Statsig remains operationally independent, minimizing disruption for current customers.
The Bigger Picture
OpenAI’s purchase of Statsig is a critical moment in the AI industry. Competitors are racing to build better models, release new applications, and secure enterprise clients. By betting on experimentation and expanding leadership capacity, OpenAI is positioning itself not just as a research pioneer but as a product powerhouse.
The reorganization also acknowledges that AI is not one-size-fits-all. Consumer products like ChatGPT, enterprise tools, and scientific research platforms all require distinct strategies. Assigning each area its own leader is a step toward scalable growth.
Looking Ahead
As regulators review the acquisition, industry observers are watching to see how OpenAI balances Statsig’s startup agility with its own scale and resources.
If successful, this deal could mark the beginning of a new era for OpenAI — one where its success is measured not just by groundbreaking AI models, but also by the speed and reliability with which it brings transformative products to the world.
With fresh leadership, Statsig’s experimentation engine, and billions in revenue, OpenAI is well positioned to define the next chapter of artificial intelligence. The acquisition of Statsig is more than a business deal — it’s a declaration that OpenAI is ready to scale smarter, move faster, and lead the AI revolution across every front.
