Thinking Machines Loses Founders to OpenAI in High-Profile Exodus

In a high-stakes talent war, two co-founders of a $12B AI startup upstart are abandoning ship for OpenAI just months after launching.

Thinking Machines Lab co-founders Barret Zoph and Luke Metz are returning to OpenAI, according to statements from both companies. Mira Murati, CTO of Thinking Machines Lab, confirmed the departure in a statement:

"We have parted ways with Barret."

Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CTO, welcomed the return of Zoph, Metz, and Sam Schoenholz in a LinkedIn post:

"Excited to welcome Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz back to OpenAI."

The startup secured a $2B seed round at a $12B valuation in July 2024, led by investors including Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. This exodus follows earlier departures like co-founder Andrew Tulloch (now at Meta) and former CTO Zoph.

OpenAI has seen similar talent shifts, including John Schulman’s move from OpenAI to Anthropic and then to Thinking Machines.

The departure raises questions about the stability of Thinking Machines’ product roadmap. Enterprise clients using its AI-powered analytics tools may face delays in feature rollouts, particularly in its $300M enterprise AI platform for financial services.

OpenAI could leverage Zoph’s expertise in model training pipelines to accelerate its Q4 2024 release of a new multimodal system.

Notably, Thinking Machines has not released public technical benchmarks for its models, making it difficult to assess how these leadership changes might impact performance metrics.

Investors remain committed, with $1.2B in unallocated funds from its 2024 round still available.