Published August 27, 2026 at 7:52 PM
TechCrunch
Aug 28, 2026, 6:00 AM
Barret Zoph, the Thinking Machines co-founder ousted before joining OpenAI, is now at Google

Zoph, who co-founded Thinking Machines Lab alongside Mira Murati and also served as the startup's CTO, led a brief stint at OpenAI and is now at Google.
Canonical URL for this story: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/27/barret-zoph-the-thinking-machines-co-founder-who-defected-to-openai-is-now-at-google/