AI’s Messy Human Drama
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Of all the fronts in the AI wars—funding, electricity, chips—the messiest is the fight for human capital.
Top AI researchers can earn hundreds of millions of dollars and jump between labs with ease, all while carrying around the knowledge that they may be writing humanity’s future. It’s a recipe for high-stakes drama.
Barret Zoph was one of six OpenAI employees who left to start Thinking Machines Lab a year ago. On Jan. 14, Thinking Machines Chief Executive Mira Murati—the person who replaced Sam Altman as OpenAI’s CEO during his brief ouster—posted on X that the company had “parted ways” with Zoph.
Within hours, tech reporters Keach Hagey and Meghan Bobrowsky learned that Zoph had been fired—and immediately hired by OpenAI. They found out that Zoph had had a romantic relationship with another Thinking Machines employee, and that Murati had described Zoph, in a message to colleagues, as having a series of performance and conduct issues while at the company. Zoph said Thinking Machines fired him “only after it learned I would be leaving the company” and never cited performance or conduct as a factor.
Then the reporters began to hear even more intriguing details about the backstory behind Zoph’s exit—details that included a surprise meeting, an attempted power grab and secret discussions with Altman and executives at OpenAI competitor Meta Platforms.
Keach and Meghan spent the days that followed nailing down those details. They ended up with a story that will have you wondering: With all this workplace drama, how do these companies ever get around to making world-changing AI?