Editorial illustration for Barret Zoph Leaves OpenAI for Google After Five Months
Barret Zoph Leaves OpenAI for Google VP Role
Barret Zoph has changed employers four times in fourteen months. The latest move: Google, where he's taking a job as vice president of research, focused on reinforcement learning and post-training work for Gemini. It's the same company he worked at before any of this started.
The path there is dizzying. Zoph left OpenAI in October 2024 to co-found Thinking Machines with Mira Murati, who had exited the lab a month earlier. That startup lasted for him until January, when he and fellow co-founder Luke Metz abruptly quit to go back to OpenAI.
The return lasted five months. Zoph ran AI enterprise sales at OpenAI before leaving again in June, and his destination stayed unclear until now.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the hire to the Wall Street Journal, framing it as a homecoming rather than a new hire. TechCrunch has reached out to both OpenAI and Google for more detail on what prompted the latest jump.
Zoph's résumé is becoming a case study in how unstable executive tenure has gotten across the AI industry, and at OpenAI in particular.
Zoph has taken a position as vice president of research at Google (which happens to be another company where he previously worked). “We look forward to Barret returning to Google and bringing his RL and post-training expertise to Gemini,” a Google spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.
Why this matters
Zoph's three moves in fourteen months, OpenAI to Thinking Machines to OpenAI to Google, tell us something about how thin the talent bench actually is at the top of frontier AI labs. When the same handful of names keep rotating through Google, OpenAI, and a handful of well-funded startups, it suggests these companies are competing over a pool of maybe a few hundred people who can credibly run research or enterprise sales at this level. For founders trying to hire, that's a warning: equity and mission statements aren't holding people the way they used to.
For researchers, it's a signal that a two-year stint co-founding a startup can end quietly if the money and org chart at a bigger lab look better. And for anyone watching Thinking Machines specifically, losing two co-founders, Zoph and Luke Metz, within months raises real questions about what Mira Murati is building there and whether it can hold its own team together long enough to ship something. Watch where Metz lands next.
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Common Questions Answered
Why did Barret Zoph leave OpenAI after only five months?
Barret Zoph left OpenAI in October 2024 to co-found Thinking Machines with Mira Murati, who had exited OpenAI a month earlier. The startup represented an opportunity for Zoph to pursue his own venture in the AI space alongside other experienced researchers.
What is Barret Zoph's new role at Google and what will he focus on?
Zoph has taken a position as vice president of research at Google, where he will focus on reinforcement learning and post-training work for Gemini. Google specifically highlighted his expertise in RL and post-training as valuable contributions to their AI development efforts.
How many times has Barret Zoph changed employers in fourteen months?
Barret Zoph has changed employers four times in fourteen months, moving from OpenAI to Thinking Machines to OpenAI and finally to Google. This rapid succession of moves demonstrates significant volatility in his career trajectory within the AI research space.
What does Zoph's job-hopping pattern reveal about the AI research talent market?
Zoph's three moves in fourteen months suggest that the talent bench at the top of frontier AI labs is extremely thin, with the same handful of names rotating through Google, OpenAI, and well-funded startups. This indicates that companies are competing over a pool of only a few hundred people who can credibly run research or enterprise sales at the highest levels of AI development.
Further Reading
- Barret Zoph is out at OpenAI again after just five months - The Verge
- Barret Zoph, the Thinking Machines co-founder who defected to OpenAI, is now at Google - TechCrunch
- A former OpenAI and Thinking Machines co-founder is joining Google DeepMind as a research VP - Quartz
- OpenAI is coming for those sweet enterprise dollars in 2026 - TechCrunch
- Mira Murati's startup, Thinking Machines Lab, is losing two of its co-founders to OpenAI - TechCrunch
