Barret Zoph has joined Google as vice president of research after leaving OpenAI in June. The former Thinking Machines co-founder previously worked at OpenAI for two years before departing in October 2024 to co-found his own startup with Mira Murati. He returned to the AI lab in January but lasted only five months in a role heading enterprise sales. This latest move marks his third major position in less than a year, returning him to a company where he previously worked before his initial tenure.
This rapid churn highlights significant instability at OpenAI, which has lost several critical staff members despite preparing for an initial public offering. The company has seen departures ranging from its chief operating officer to top data centre executives over the last eight months. Google now intends to apply Zoph’s expertise in reinforcement learning and post-training to its Gemini model.
* Zoph previously worked at Google before joining Thinking Machines and OpenAI
* He will lead research efforts specifically for the Gemini large language model
* OpenAI has lost multiple senior leaders since beginning IPO preparations
