Barret Zoph has landed a new role at Google, becoming the latest high-profile executive to change seats in the fast-moving artificial intelligence industry. Zoph, a co-founder of the AI startup Thinking Machines who briefly rejoined OpenAI earlier this year, has now taken a position as vice president of research at Google.
According to a Google spokesperson, Zoph will apply his reinforcement learning and post-training expertise to Gemini, the company’s flagship AI model family. “We look forward to Barret returning to Google and bringing his RL and post-training expertise to Gemini,” the spokesperson said. Google is a company where Zoph had previously worked before his string of recent moves.
A Rapid Series of Career Moves
Zoph’s path over the past two years illustrates just how quickly AI talent is shifting between major players. He spent two years at OpenAI before leaving in October 2024 to co-found Thinking Machines alongside Mira Murati, who had departed the AI lab the month prior. Luke Metz was another co-founder of the startup.
In January, Zoph and Metz left Thinking Machines in dramatic fashion to return to OpenAI. It was later revealed that Zoph had been fired from the startup. His second stint at OpenAI proved short-lived, lasting only five months. There, he was tasked with leading AI enterprise sales before exiting the company in June.
High Turnover Across the AI Industry
The frequent job changes reflect a broader trend of elevated turnover across the AI sector, and the pattern has been especially pronounced at OpenAI. Despite preparing for an IPO and holding one of the most influential positions in the tech world, the company has lost a significant number of key staff over the past eight months.
That departure list includes senior figures ranging from its chief operating officer to one of its top data center executives. The steady exodus of leadership talent has drawn attention from observers trying to make sense of the shifts. Zoph’s arrival at Google adds another chapter to the ongoing reshuffling of AI executives among the industry’s largest firms.
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