OpenAI CTO of Application on Product Experimentation with AI and $1.1B Statsig Acquisition | Vijaye Raji | E273

September 12, 2025·36 min

The premise is simple. Raji argues that a company has to keep building, because the day it stops is the day it starts dying. Intuition comes first. Data and experimentation still matter, but he treats them as ways to improve the idea after a product leader has made the first leap. The funding gives the episode a concrete backdrop: a $100 million round at a $1.1 billion valuation. Carlos moves from the company's origin and scale into product led growth, keeping the questions practical. The account motion starts small. Raji describes landing with a team of about ten people, letting them actually live with the product, then using that adoption as the base for expansion. Internal champions do a lot of the work. People move between teams, talk about what they are using, and bring the product into other parts of the same company. Pricing matters too. Because the product is not seat based, more people inside a customer company can try it without creating extra license friction. Usage becomes the tell. Raji watches weekly active users, how many product teams are involved, and how many experiments teams are running. Experiments point to velocity. When usage jumps in a step function, he reads it as a sign that another team inside the company has picked up the product. AI widens the loop. He expects agents that help teams build products to eventually help optimize those products too, with more self healing and self optimizing systems. PMs are still in the picture. In his view, the tools give product managers more leverage when they need to test ideas and build conviction quickly.

As heard by us

A grounded operator conversation on experimentation, PLG expansion, and why AI may give product managers more leverage.

Product experimentation is framed here as operating infrastructure, not just a dashboard habit. Carlos uses Vijaye Raji's Statsig story to ask a practical growth question: how a product-led company moves from a small team inside an enterprise account to wider adoption without…

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Why you'd press play

For when you want product intuition, experimentation, and AI's next step in one conversation.

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