The Pragmatic Engineer

The Pragmatic Engineer

The Pulse

The Pulse #148: Did OpenAI set a new record for Datadog spend?

A reported $170M per year is almost triple Coinbase’s previous record. Also: the largest British automaker learns that outsourcing cybersecurity was a terrible decision, and more

Gergely Orosz's avatar
Gergely Orosz
Oct 02, 2025
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The Pulse is a series covering events, insights, and trends within Big Tech and startups. Notice an interesting event or trend? Hit reply and share it with me.

Today, we cover:

  1. Is OpenAI spending record sums on Datadog? OpenAI is reportedly spending around $170M a year on Datadog, but for how much longer? OpenAI’s acquisition of Statsig for $1B could make a lot of sense in context.

  2. Industry Pulse. Major launches by Anthropic and Cursor, a tech startup founder is jailed for fraud, fake applicants still a problem in recruitment, the first malicious MCP server in the wild, AI polluting open source contributions, and more.

  3. Outsourcing security is a terrible idea: Jaguar Land Rover. A month after a major hack shut down Britain’s largest automaker, the company has yet to recover. It seems hampered by overly-complicated, connected systems, with cybersecurity outsourced to Tata. Underinvestment in security is forcing the UK government to bail it out.

1. Is OpenAI spending record sums on Datadog?

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