The AI industry's game of musical chairs continues, with Barret Zoph, co-founder of Thinking Machines who briefly rejoined OpenAI, now landing at Google. Zoph, who spent two years at OpenAI before leaving in October 2024 to co-found Thinking Machines with Mira Murati, made a dramatic exit from the startup in January alongside fellow co-founder Luke Metz to return to OpenAI. But his return lasted only five months; he left in June. Now, he's taken a role as vice president of research at Google, where he previously worked. A Google spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal, "We look forward to Barret returning to Google and bringing his RL and post-training expertise to Gemini." TechCrunch reached out to both companies for comment, because why not? The turnover rate in AI is high, especially at OpenAI, which has lost critical staff over the last eight months despite prepping for an IPO. From the COO to a top data center exec, it's a revolving door that would make a saloon jealous.