Mira Murati's AI startup loses multiple top researchers to rivals
Thinking Machines Lab, the AI company started by Mira Murati in San Francisco, just lost several top minds—including co-founders Barret Zoph and Luke Metz—to rivals, with Zoph and Metz returning to OpenAI and others to Meta.
Key researchers like Sam Schoenholz and Andrew Tulloch have also moved on, with Tulloch joining Meta (timing not specified in the source).
OpenAI wasted no time in scooping up Zoph and Metz
OpenAI wasted no time scooping up Zoph and Metz in January 2026—just minutes after Murati announced Zoph's departure online.
Jolene Parish was among departures from Thinking Machines Lab (destination and timing not specified in the source).
Soumith Chintala has been brought on board to steady the ship
To steady the ship, Thinking Machines Lab brought on PyTorch creator Soumith Chintala as CTO right after Zoph left.
They also added Olympiad triple gold medalist Neal Wu to their (once 50-strong) team.
Thinking Machines Lab is still sitting on $2 billion in funding
Even with these big exits, Thinking Machines Lab is still sitting on $2 billion in funding from last year and a $12 billion valuation.
But keeping up the momentum might get trickier without some of its original stars.