"On social media on Wednesday, Murati announced the departure of Barret Zoph, the company's co-founder and CTO. "We have parted ways with Barret," Murati said in a post on X. "Soumith Chintala will be the new CTO of Thinking Machines. He is a brilliant and seasoned leader who has made important contributions to the AI field for over a decade, and he's been a major contributor to our team. We could not be more excited to have him take on this new responsibility.""
"Just 58 minutes after Murati's announcement of Zoph's departure, Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of applications, announced that Zoph would be headed back to OpenAI. "Excited to welcome Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz back to OpenAI! This has been in the works for several weeks, and we're thrilled to have them join the team," Simo wrote on X."
"Zoph previously worked for OpenAI as VP of research, and before that, worked for six years at Google as a research scientist. Murati, who served as the CTO of OpenAI until September 2024, left the company and co-founded Thinking Machines with Zoph and Metz. The startup, where Murati serves as CEO, has amassed significant financial support since then, closing a $2 billion seed round last July, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, which led the round, as well as Accel, Nvidia, AMD, and Jane Street, among others. The found valued the company at $12 billion."
Thinking Machines Lab is losing two co-founders and another early employee as they return to OpenAI. Barret Zoph has departed and Soumith Chintala will serve as the new CTO. Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz are headed back to OpenAI. Zoph previously served as OpenAI VP of research and worked six years at Google; Metz and Schoenholz also previously worked at OpenAI. Mira Murati co-founded Thinking Machines after leaving OpenAI as CTO in September 2024 and remains CEO. The startup secured a $2 billion seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz and was valued at $12 billion.
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