Barret Zoph has left OpenAI just five months after rejoining the company, The Verge reported on June 19, 2026. Zoph had been serving as OpenAI’s head of enterprise AI sales and posted a goodbye message in the company’s internal Slack channels. OpenAI confirmed his departure to The Verge.
Zoph returned to OpenAI in mid-January 2026 after a brief stint as co-founder and CTO of Thinking Machines Lab, a competing AI company founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. He departed Thinking Machines Lab abruptly in January 2026 following reports of alleged misconduct involving an undisclosed relationship with a colleague. Murati announced on X that the company had “parted ways” with Zoph and that he would be replaced as CTO.
Upon his return to OpenAI, Zoph was joined by two other former colleagues, Luke Metz and Sam Schoenholz, who had also left for Thinking Machines Lab. Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, wrote on X at the time that she was “excited to welcome Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz back” and that the decision had “been in the works for several weeks.”
The enterprise role Zoph was assigned carried considerable weight at OpenAI. The company had recently stated its intention to stop pursuing what it called “side quests” and instead concentrate on key revenue drivers — enterprise and coding — ahead of a planned IPO.
Zoph’s exit comes amid broader tensions between OpenAI and Thinking Machines Lab. During a recent OpenAI trial, Murati testified that she could not trust everything CEO Sam Altman said. Murati also briefly served as OpenAI’s interim CEO during Altman’s November 2023 ouster. Zoph did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source: The Verge