As reported on Amplitude's blog, Amplitude have bought Statsig.
The first thing to note is that this is the second purchase of the company, Statsig, in under a year. First by OpenAI and now by a large public Analytics firm. At the time of purchasing it, OpenAI looked on the surface to want the people more than the technology. The former Statsig CEO, Vijaye Raji, became CTO of Applications for OpenAI as part of the move. There was a promise that Statsig would continue to operate independently, but that the team from there would be very helpful to OpenAI for optimising in tools like ChatGPT (which I believe was already a customer of Statsig's at the time).
Quote from Amplitude on the takeover:
"Today we are announcing a strategic partnership with Statsig. Amplitude will take on Statsig’s brand and customers. Amplitude will maintain and develop the current Statsig platform across the cloud and data warehouse, including support for existing customers. Amplitude will also begin building a more integrated roadmap for the future of the Amplitude and Statsig platforms together. We’ll work closely with the Statsig team at OpenAI during the transition."
This wording, very careful in it's nature, makes one thing extremely clear - the team from Statsig are not moving over to Amplitude.
Amplitude have bought access to the customer book, which is very enterprise-led for Statsig, and the product, but not the people. This is great for Amplitude - the sales cycle for acquiring names like Atlassian or Bloomberg is long and painful and now they have an open door.
Further, Statsig made it's name as a Warehouse-native player - something Amplitude hadn't. And so again, this is a strategic move and an opportunity for Amplitude to do things they don't manage to do today.
Amplitude already have an AB Testing platform - so why do they need Statsig?
Yes. Amplitude Experiments has been around for around 5 years, with a WYSIWYG and Feature Management, Sequential Testing and CUPED, Multi-Armed Bandits and more.
So what piece of the technology exactly were they in need of? One would argue, very little of it.
The most obvious answer is usually the right one, and when Statsig's customer book includes Microsoft, OpenAI and Atlassian, and Amplitude's leading product of Web Analytics likely costs 10x what the license for the testing platform does, it's an easy sales lead generation exercise.
And that's where I think things begin to unravel a little.
If their calculation is that they could sell into 15% of Statsig's customers and the rest could leave, and they would still be up in revenue substantially - that leaves a lot of customers "homeless". And, if they were going head-to-head and Amplitude was losing out on customers, as I imagine happened often from the overlap in ICP, Statsig existing outside of Amplitude likely hurt them on a daily basis.
So what might this mean for their customers?
"Amplitude will also begin building a more integrated roadmap for the future of the Amplitude and Statsig platforms together."
It looks as though Statsig will likely retire as a platform, and take over from Amplitude Experiments being integrated into the Amplitude platform.
This is never a good thing for customers.
This is the second forced vendor change for Statsig customers inside a year. First by an AI lab, where the people were stripped away, and now by an Analytics platform where the product will be stripped away. What are you left with? Not much.
For customers who chose Statsig over competitive feature platforms like LaunchDarkly or Optimizely because the people were smart, or because it was a young, fast-moving company - both reasons for that choice have now evaporated.
For customers who were hoping for a thriving roadmap from a dedicated AB Testing platform that moves quickly, powered by a thriving AI lab - that's gone as well.
What might happen to Statsig's free tier?
Amplitude has a very thin free tier, far less generous than Statsig. Today, it includes "unlimited feature flags" up to 10k MTUs.
In all likelihood, Statsig's model won't fly in the new world, and these are easy things that the larger company Amplitude will strip away.
Meaning less opportunities for smaller companies with less traffic.
OpenAI shedding weight
It's also very obvious that OpenAI are preparing for IPO (Initial Public Offering). And as part of this, holding onto projects that they don't want to maintain and that don't align with the overall vision is nothing short of a distraction.
They paid just over $1B in Statsig stock a few months ago. That was enough to secure a team, and likely grow ChatGPT and other OpenAI products by more than this value.
Amplitude probably paid very little for the customer book, likely just with commitments to support customers, and in exchange got a giant logo grab and sales pipeline.
What does it mean for Webtrends Optimize?
We have always had the ability to make and manage Feature Flags, collect data, and report on uplifts. Built for the same customers Statsig flaunts today like Microsoft, but with a singular focus.
The team remain in place, the product roadmap is nothing short of lightning-paced compared to any other platform out there. And the improvements we have already made over the last 18 months are a sign of what more is to come.
And while AB Tasty and VWO are likely distracted from their merger, and Optimizely continues to push in the CMS space and with Opal - there is yet again a wide gap that will form, where customers are in need of a reliable, capable platform like ours.
