Barret Zoph, the Thinking Machines co-founder who defected to OpenAI, is now at Google

AI researcher Barret Zoph has joined Google as vice president of research after a brief and turbulent tenure at OpenAI. Zoph, a co-founder of Thinking Machines, is expected to contribute his expertise in reinforcement learning to Google's Gemini project.
Why it matters
The high turnover of top-tier AI talent among major labs like OpenAI and Google reflects the intense competition for expertise in the rapidly evolving generative AI sector.
The game of musical chairs for AI executives continues. Barret Zoph, a co-founder of the AI startup Thinking Machines who left the company earlier this year to rejoin OpenAI, has found yet another job.
The report objectively tracks the career movements of a tech executive without taking a side in the corporate competition.
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