27 August 2026
OpenAI researcher Zoph joins Google as VP of research
First reported
TLDR AI and TechCrunch ran this on , all on the same day.
- Barret Zoph, who co-founded AI startup Thinking Machines with OpenAI's former CEO Mira Murati in September 2024, was fired from that role in January.
- Zoph returned to OpenAI in January 2025 to head enterprise sales but left after five months in June.
- Google has now hired Zoph as vice president of research, where he will focus on reinforcement learning and post-training work for Google's Gemini AI system.
- Zoph's frequent job changes reflect high executive turnover across the AI industry, particularly at OpenAI, which has lost multiple senior leaders in recent months.
How it was covered
TLDR AITLDR editorial team
Barret Zoph, co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab who left for OpenAI after disputes with CEO Mira Murati, is now joining Google as vice-president of research. Google is restructuring AI development to catch up on AI code generation capabilities.
Reported by TechCrunch