Former Thinking Machines Lab CTO Barret Zoph Joins Google

28 Aug 2026, 1:22 am · 16d ago · 1 min read · TechCrunch AI

Prominent artificial intelligence researcher Barret Zoph has joined Google following a brief tenure at OpenAI. Zoph previously co-founded Thinking Machines Lab alongside former OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati and served as the startup's chief technology officer before his departure. Prior to founding Thinking Machines Lab, Zoph held senior research roles in the AI sector, contributing significantly to foundational model architectures and reinforcement learning techniques. His transition to Google highlights the intensifying competition for top-tier AI engineering talent among major tech giants racing to build and scale advanced frontier generative models.