Leaders in Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab confronted the startup’s co-founder and former technology executive, Barrett Zoff, about an alleged affair with another employee last summer, WIRED has learned.
This relationship is likely the alleged “misconduct” cited in previous reports, including WIRED’s report.
To protect the privacy of the individuals involved, WIRED is not naming the employee involved. The individual, who worked in a different department than Zoph and was in a leadership role, is no longer in the lab.
Sources say that Moratti contacted Zoff to discuss the relationship. The business relationship between the founders collapsed in the months after that conversation, according to multiple sources, and Zoff began talking to competitors about other opportunities.
Before Zoph left the company, he was in conversation with leaders from Meta Superintelligence Labs, according to a source familiar with the matter. Zoph was eventually hired by OpenAI. Fidji Simo, chief applications officer at OpenAI, said the hiring had been in the works for weeks. Simo also noted that she did not share Thinking Machines’ concerns about Zoph’s ethics.
Zoph and OpenAI declined to comment for this story.
This week, Thinking Machines’ third co-founder, Luke Metz, and at least three other researchers from Murati’s startup also left for OpenAI. In October, the startup’s co-founder Andrew Tulloch left for Meta.
Although tensions between Moratti and Zoff have reached their peak in recent days, they do not fully explain the exodus of Thinking Machines employees.
WIRED previously reported that there was an imbalance within Thinking Machines about what the startup should build.
In November, Moratti was initiated It is said It is looking to raise capital at a valuation of $50 billion, up from its current valuation of $12 billion.
Thinking Machines Lab declined to comment for this story.