Indian-Origin Vijaye Raji Becomes OpenAI’s New CTO of Applications: All You Need To Know

Vijaye Raji, an Indian-origin engineer from Puducherry, has been appointed as OpenAI's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Applications, a newly created role aimed at bolstering the company's consumer-facing AI products. The announcement coincides with OpenAI's $1.1 billion acquisition of Statsig, a product experimentation platform founded by Raji in 2021, in an all-stock deal. Raji will report to Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of Applications, and lead product engineering for ChatGPT and Codex, overseeing critical infrastructure and integrity systems.

Raji brings over two decades of experience to OpenAI, having started his career at Microsoft, where he worked as a principal engineer on projects like Windows Application Framework and Visual Studio Editor. He later joined Meta (then Facebook), rising to Vice President and Head of Entertainment, scaling the Seattle office to over 5,000 employees and managing products like Marketplace and Messenger. In 2021, Raji founded Statsig, a platform powering A/B testing and feature flagging, which has been integral to OpenAI's development processes.

"Vijaye has a remarkable record of building consumer and B2B products at scale,” said Simo, highlighting his role in advancing OpenAI’s mission to create safe, intuitive AI tools. Raji called the opportunity 'extraordinary,' emphasizing his commitment to scaling AI solutions that solve complex problems. The Statsig acquisition, pending regulatory approval, will see its employees join OpenAI while maintaining independent operations in Seattle. This move underscores OpenAI’s strategy to strengthen its applications division through strategic acquisitions and leadership talent.