Thinking Machines co-founder and CTO Barret Zoph has exited the startup and returned to OpenAI, with Soumith Chintala stepping in as the new CTO.
OpenAI has also brought back Thinking Machines co-founder Luke Metz and researcher Sam Schoenholz, following weeks of internal discussions.
The talent exits mark another setback for Murati’s high-profile startup, which raised $2 billion in mid-2025 at a $12 billion valuation.
AI talent was among the most talked about things last year with big tech giants rolling multi million dollar packages to poach them. Well, it seems to continue as OpenAI has started 2026 on a high. This comes after the reports confirmed that OpenAI has brought back multiple senior researchers from Thinking Machines Lab, the high-profile AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati.
SurveyMurati confirmed that Barret Zoph, a co-founder and the chief technology officer of Thinking Machines, has exited the startup. Taking to X, she announced that Soumith Chintala will take over as CTO, describing him as a long-time contributor with deep experience in the AI research ecosystem. Murati did not reference any other departures in her statement.
Soon after, OpenAI confirmed that Zoph is returning to the company. Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of applications, revealed that Zoph, along with Thinking Machines co-founder Luke Metz and researcher Sam Schoenholz, are rejoining OpenAI following discussions that had been underway for several weeks.
For the unversed, Metz and Schoenholz used to hold technical roles at OpenAI before moving to Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines. Zoph, meanwhile, had served as OpenAI’s vice president of research after spending several years at Google as a research scientist.
Well, this is not the first time the startup experienced such job moves. In recent months, the startup has also experienced other high-level departures, such as co-founder Andrew Tulloch, who joined Meta.
Mira Murati herself stepped down as OpenAI’s CTO and announced Thinking Machines Lab. It got a lot of attention as it assembled a team of prominent AI researchers and secured a massive $2 billion seed round in mid-2025, valuing the company at around $12 billion. It was led by Andreessen Horowitz and included participation from Accel, Nvidia, AMD, and Jane Street.
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Ashish Singh
Ashish Singh is the Chief Copy Editor at Digit. He's been wrangling tech jargon since 2020 (Times Internet, Jagran English '22). When not policing commas, he's likely fueling his gadget habit with coffee, strategising his next virtual race, or plotting a road trip to test the latest in-car tech. He speaks fluent Geek. View Full Profile
