Hats off to Statsig. They built a stellar product. Superior to many of their industry competitors like Optimizely. Back when I was on an internal Experimentation platform, we were impressed how they balanced dev velocity & stat rigor https://www.statsig.com/updates These guys ship.
Business-wise, I think getting acquired was the right choice. Experimentation is too small & treacherous to build a great business, and the broader Product Analytics space is also overcrowded. Amplitude (YC 2012), to date, only has a 1.4B market cap.
Joining the hottest name next door gives Statsig a lot more room to explore. I look forward to their evolution.
The CTO of applications reporting to CEO of applications (who reports to the actual CEO) is kinda weird? I figure you're either the actual CTO or you're not a C-level exec and should have another title. Just more title inflation I guess. Maybe in same way you see VPs of X everywhere in some organizations we'll be starting to see CEO/CTO of X lower and lower down the org chart.
citizenpaul · 8m ago
Sounds to me like another phase in the growth of the "Unaccountability Machine"
Oh the CTO approved it so we should blame them. No not that CTO the other CTO. Oh so who decided on the final out come. The CTO! So who is on first again?
nerdsniper · 2h ago
“CTO” makes sense as a signal that “the buck stops here” for technical issues. They are the highest-ranking authority on technical decisions for their silo, with no one above them (but two CEO’s above them for business decisions)
If Mira Murati (CTO of OpenAI) has authority over their technical decisions, then it’s an odd title. If I was talking with a CTO, I wouldn't expect another CTO to outrank or be able to overrule them.
atty · 2h ago
It would be quite strange indeed for Mira Murati to have a say over their technical decisions, considering she does not work for OpenAI :)
neom · 4h ago
It's signaling P&L responsibilities. It's not that weird, at least not unheard of at all, just that it's typically done through "EVP" - So EVP Applications, VP of Applications Engineering, etc. - I'm guessing that the line items those "C"s who are not Sam are responsible for, are bigger than most F500 executives, and they're using titles to reflect that reality.
swyx · 3h ago
just gonna point out that Google has done this as well and its not so much title inflation as it is just acknownledging the fact that if the unit they command was a standalone business they would well be worth the CEO/CTO title.
motoxpro · 1h ago
Yep. CEO of YouTube, Google Cloud, etc.
prasadjoglekar · 1h ago
Just look at any media agency (OMG as an example). There are CEOs up the wazoo, one for North America, one for EU etc.
In practice, these are just internal P&Ls.
geodel · 4h ago
This C level thing is happening for decades. There are many with CTO title who manage groups sometime as small as 5-10 people. And they are not startups but large corporates.
giancarlostoro · 4h ago
I'm just sitting here wondering what in the world "Applications" is, is that a subsidiary or what?
kridsdale1 · 1h ago
A thing that uses a model to have customers.
therealbilliam · 4h ago
Apparently that's what they call ChatGPT, Codex, etc ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
creddit · 1h ago
So there will be at least two separate technical organizations within OAI. Pretty small company (HC and product surface wise) for that.
Is Brockman now CTO over research specifically or is there going to be a weird dotted line?
gavmor · 42m ago
Data/ML and Apps split seems pretty normal to me, even in a company of ~20. What makes a group of coworkers into "an org"? That they don't attend one-another's retros?
creddit · 1h ago
Also, best of luck to current statsig customers lol
arthurcolle · 1h ago
Like Anthropic
kevinastone · 3h ago
Looks like Fidji is reconstituting her Org from Meta
kridsdale1 · 1h ago
It was extremely effective while it was running. I was there.
behnamoh · 3h ago
Are we supposed to post every blog/news post of OpenAI and keep fueling the AI hype? I think at this point people should know that OpenAI is just like any other company.
drewda · 46m ago
Agreed. There are dozens of startups and established companies providing analytics-y software. The fact that this one is being acquired by OpenAI doesn't make it any more newsworthy to anyone other than the people who are getting some OpenAI equity...
MontgomeryPy · 3h ago
This seems like a big shift for OpenAI into an enterprise applications vendor to me.
rchaud · 3h ago
What else could they have been? Microsoft didn't give them $10bn to build out their B2C homework autocomplete service.
babelfish · 1h ago
It was almost certainly purchased just for internal usage. See: Rockset
Hansenq · 2h ago
How come this acquisition gets to go through, but Windsurf didn't? There might be antitrust review here too, and Microsoft might also lay a claim to Statsig's IP due to their contract with OpenAI. Maybe Statsig didn't care that Microsoft would have access to the IP?
barrrrald · 2h ago
Windsurf didn't not go through because of regulatory or MSFT issue – that was always a fig leaf. OAI walked.
boringg · 3h ago
1.1 B talent acquisition comp I saw somewhere. That cant be right is it - not sure what the underlying company tech is.
kridsdale1 · 1h ago
StatSig is a reimplementation of Meta’s analytics and growth systems. The best in the world and how they’re able to enter and dominate markets and scale to billions in under a year.
OpenAI is going to start competing with a ton of SAAS companies. I think we are going to see products 10x better than legacy saas products, many companies wont be able to compete.
nojvek · 45m ago
> competing with a ton of SAAS companies
A a ton of companies will compete with OpenAI while their focus is divided amongst a 100 things. May a thousand flowers bloom!
flappyeagle · 2h ago
I mean they can try. They’re not gonna be very good at it
asdev · 3h ago
curious to hear people's experience using Statsig
bertil · 2h ago
Curious to hear about how they feel about many key StatSig people walking away, and Vijaye going to lead a different product. OpenAI bought it for internal use. They plan to put the public-facing product into more of a maintenance mode.
sister [deleted] comment said "He’s an extremely well-known and deeply respected engineer, leader, and founder in the Seattle metro region. This is a key hire for OpenAI, and a good one."
Business-wise, I think getting acquired was the right choice. Experimentation is too small & treacherous to build a great business, and the broader Product Analytics space is also overcrowded. Amplitude (YC 2012), to date, only has a 1.4B market cap.
Joining the hottest name next door gives Statsig a lot more room to explore. I look forward to their evolution.
Congrats to the Statsig team!
https://www.amazon.com/Unaccountability-Machine-Systems-Terr...
Oh the CTO approved it so we should blame them. No not that CTO the other CTO. Oh so who decided on the final out come. The CTO! So who is on first again?
If Mira Murati (CTO of OpenAI) has authority over their technical decisions, then it’s an odd title. If I was talking with a CTO, I wouldn't expect another CTO to outrank or be able to overrule them.
In practice, these are just internal P&Ls.
Is Brockman now CTO over research specifically or is there going to be a weird dotted line?
[0] https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/data-usage#te...
A a ton of companies will compete with OpenAI while their focus is divided amongst a 100 things. May a thousand flowers bloom!
sister [deleted] comment said "He’s an extremely well-known and deeply respected engineer, leader, and founder in the Seattle metro region. This is a key hire for OpenAI, and a good one."