OpenAI has too much AI churn of talent. Barret Zolph has now left.

Zolph returned to OpenAI in mid-January after a stint as co-founder and CTO of Thinking Machines Lab. That didn’t take long!

Zolph originally left OpenAI in the fall of 2024 for Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab, but departed the role abruptly in January 2026 after reports of involving an undisclosed relationship with a colleague.

Murati briefly took over as CEO from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during his November 2023 ouster, and during the recent OpenAI trial, Murati that she couldn’t trust everything Altman said. (Verge). OpenAI has been poaching their talent, even as Meta poached their talent.

He has actually left OpenAI twice under completely different circumstances. Why could that be?

Relationship matter and OpenAI has burnt a lot of bridges though with very strict exit NDAs. When Zolph exited Thinky it was also reported by sources alleging he was terminated for "unethical conduct" and leaking confidential information to competitors. Hard to imagine a CTO would do that? But that’s the general ethical level of OpenAI.