The talent war in the Silicon Valley AI circle has escalated again. According to WIRED, the newly established AI lab Thinking Machines Lab has suffered a major blow, with its two core co-founders Barret Zoph and Luke Metz confirmed to have left the company and will rejoin their "former employer" OpenAI.

OpenAI's Chief Executive Officer for Applied Business, Fidji Simo, announced this news in an internal memo to employees on Thursday afternoon. Barret Zoph was an important leader of OpenAI's post-training alignment team and was responsible for the development and optimization of several core projects including ChatGPT; while Luke Metz is also a top expert in deep learning.

Their previous departure from OpenAI to co-found Thinking Machines Lab was seen as a landmark event representing emerging labs challenging the dominance of big players. However, this "fast return" has sparked discussions in the industry about the current situation of start-up AI labs. Currently, there are two completely different explanations for the specific reasons behind their return: one view suggests that start-ups struggle to support their technical vision due to lack of computing power and resources, while another points to OpenAI's strong strategy of reclaiming core talents after internal restructuring.

For the rising Thinking Machines Lab, losing these two key figures is undoubtedly a heavy blow. For OpenAI, which is fully pushing forward the development of GPT-5 or subsequent large reasoning models, the return of top talents will further solidify its leading advantage in the field of generative AI.

Key Points:

🔄 Major Return: Barret Zoph, who once led the core development of ChatGPT, and senior expert Luke Metz have announced leaving their startup company to return to OpenAI.

📉 Start-up Setback: Thinking Machines Lab, which was just established, has lost two key co-founders, reflecting the severe challenges small AI labs face in terms of resources and talent retention.

📢 Official Confirmation: This news has been confirmed by OpenAI executives through internal emails, indicating that OpenAI is accelerating the integration of core technical forces to cope with more intense industry competition.