Thinking Machines Cofounder Barret Zoph Fired After Relationship with Employee

Los Angeles: Leaders at Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab had a serious talk with cofounder Barret Zoph. They were worried about a relationship he had with another employee last summer. This relationship is likely what led to the “misconduct” mentioned in earlier reports, like the ones from WIRED.

To keep things private, we won’t name the employee. This person had a leadership role in another department and is no longer with the lab. After discussing the relationship with Murati, Zoph’s working friendship with her got worse. He then started looking for new jobs at other companies.

Before leaving, Zoph talked with leaders at Meta Superintelligence Labs about new opportunities. Ultimately, he accepted a job at OpenAI. Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of applications, said they had been planning this for weeks. She also mentioned that she did not share the worries Thinking Machines had about Zoph’s ethics.

Zoph and OpenAI chose not to comment on this situation. Recently, another cofounder, Luke Metz, along with three other researchers from Thinking Machines, also joined OpenAI. In October, cofounder Andrew Tulloch left for Meta.

Although things got tense between Murati and Zoph, this wasn’t the only reason many employees chose to leave Thinking Machines. Earlier reports noted that there were disagreements about what the startup should create. In November, the company was trying to raise money at a $50 billion valuation, an increase from its current $12 billion value.

Thinking Machines Lab did not comment for this story.