Mira Murati has confirmed that chief technology officer of her AI startup Thinking Machines Lab, Barret Zoph is leaving. Murati shared a post on microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter) where she said “We have parted ways with Barret Zoph”. She continued: “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”. Zoph is not the only one leaving. Luke Metz, a co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, and Sam Schoenholz are also exiting the company. All three were previously employees at OpenAI and will now return to OpenAI after their exit in 2024 to start the AI firm.Now, two narratives have formed about Barret Zoph’s exit from Thinking Machines Lab.

OpenAI’s Fidji Simo welcomes Barret Zoph and two others

One of the two narratives we talked above is what Fidji Simo, CEO of applications at OpenAI shared online. In a welcome post, Somo says that the exit “has been in the works for several weeks”. “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. Barret will report to me; Luke and Sam will report into Barret. More to come on what they’ll focus on soon!,” she wrote in the post.According to a Wired report, Simo also sent a memo to staff where she claimed that Zoph was considering leaving and was eventually ‘fired’ on Wednesday, January 14. In the memo, Simo says that OpenAI doesn’t share the “same concerns” about Zoph as Thinking Machines Lab CEO Mira Murati.The concerns, which is also the second narrative, included “unethical conduct” on Zoph’s part where he allegedly shared confidential information with the competitors, as claimed by technology reporter Kylie Robison quoting a source close to Thinking Machines.

Shake-up major win for OpenAI

While this personnel is a major blow to Thinking Machines Lab that lost another co-founder, Andrew Tulloch, in November last year. It is a win for ChatGPT maker OpenAI facing ‘big crisis’ amid key executives’ departure and the recently announced Apple-Google Gemini deal to power next-generation Siri. OpenAI VP of research Jerry Tworek recently told staff that he’s leaving the company, and shared his exit note publicly on X.Phil Chen, Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI announced that today is his last day at the company.