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Barret Zoph has left OpenAI again after only five months. He was leading OpenAI's enterprise AI sales, a key focus area for the company. His departure comes as OpenAI concentrates on core revenue drivers ahead of its planned IPO.
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He rejoined the company in January after a stint as co-founder of Mira Murati’s competitor, Thinking Machines Lab.
He rejoined the company in January after a stint as co-founder of Mira Murati’s competitor, Thinking Machines Lab.
Five months after returning to OpenAI, Barret Zoph — the company’s head of enterprise AI sales — has departed, The Verge has learned.
Zoph returned to OpenAI in mid-January after a stint as co-founder and CTO of Thinking Machines Lab, the competing AI company founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. Shortly after Zoph returned to OpenAI, the company said he would lead its push into enterprise — a significant role at OpenAI, since in recent months it had vowed to stop chasing so-called “side quests” and focus on key revenue drivers like enterprise and coding ahead of its planned IPO.
OpenAI confirmed to The Verge that Zoph will be departing. He posted a goodbye message in the company’s Slack channels. Zoph did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Zoph 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 alleged misconduct involving an undisclosed relationship with a colleague. Murati posted on X in January that Thinking Machines Lab had “parted ways” with Zoph and that he would be replaced as CTO.