He co-founded a lab, was fired from it, spent five months selling OpenAI to enterprises, and has now landed as a research VP at Google DeepMind
Barret Zoph said on X on 27 August that he is joining Google DeepMind, where he takes a vice-president of research role. The route there is unusual even by this industry's standards: two years at OpenAI, then out in October 2024 to co-found Thinking Machines Lab with Mira Murati as its chief technology officer; a dramatic return to OpenAI in January alongside fellow co-founder Luke Metz, which was later reported to have followed his firing from Thinking Machines; five months at OpenAI heading enterprise sales rather than research; and departure in June. Google is also where he worked before all of this. He arrives at a DeepMind that has lost a great deal of senior research talent this month, including Jeff Dean after 27 years.
Why it mattersIndividual hires are usually noise. This one is a reading of where research leadership thinks the work is: DeepMind spent August losing the people who built its reputation and is now buying back seniority at the level below the departures. It is also a reminder of how little the job titles mean at the top of this field — the same person went from chief technology officer of a frontier lab to running enterprise sales to research vice-president in under two years, which says more about how fast these organisations are being rebuilt than about any one career.
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