Thinking Machines Lab employee rejoins OpenAI amid talent exodus

Jolene Parish, who joined Thinking Machines Lab in April last year, is leaving to rejoin OpenAI. She previously spent three years at OpenAI and worked for a decade on security at Apple.

The move follows a string of departures from the startup led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. Last month co-founders Barret Zoph and Luke Metz left, along with researcher Sam Schoenholz; researcher Lia Guy has also rejoined OpenAI. OpenAI and Thinking Machines Lab declined to comment on the latest hire.

Thinking Machines Lab raised $2 billion last year, valuing the company at $12 billion, and launched its first product, Tinker, in October. The San Francisco-based startup has attracted high-profile talent.

It quietly hired Neal Wu, a coder who won three gold medals in an Olympiad for programming, and Soumith Chintala, creator of the open-source AI project PyTorch, who is now Thinking Machines Lab's CTO.

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