Thinking Machines co-founder Barret Zoph lands at Google as VP of research

Barret Zoph, co-founder of AI startup Thinking Machines who left the company earlier this year to rejoin OpenAI, has landed at Google as vice president of research, TechCrunch reported on August 27. The game of musical chairs for AI executives continues.

Zoph spent two years at OpenAI before leaving in October 2024 to co-found Thinking Machines with Mira Murati, who had departed the AI lab the month prior. Zoph served as the startup's CTO until January, when he and fellow co-founder Luke Metz dramatically departed Thinking Machines to return to OpenAI.

The return didn't stick. Zoph spent only five months at OpenAI, where he was tasked with heading AI enterprise sales, and left the company in June. His next stop is now confirmed: vice president of research at Google, another company where he previously worked.

A Google spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal: "We look forward to Barret returning to Google and bringing his RL and post-training expertise to Gemini." TechCrunch reached out to OpenAI and Google for more information; neither company has commented further.

The move comes amid heavy turnover across the AI industry, which has been especially pronounced at OpenAI. Over the past eight months the company has lost a lot of critical staff, from its COO to one of its top data center executives, even as it prepares for an IPO and remains one of the most powerful presences in tech.

Zoph's reinforcement learning and post-training background maps directly onto Gemini's development priorities, and his brief enterprise-sales stint at OpenAI makes him a rare research-plus-operations hire. The open questions are how Google folds him into the Gemini organization, and whether OpenAI can slow its talent drain as it heads toward an IPO.