Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, has lost two founding members to Meta in recent weeks. Christian Gibson, a former OpenAI engineer who worked on the first ChatGPT model, and Noah Shpak, an AI engineer previously at Character.AI and X, have both joined Meta. The departures add to a wave of exits from the San Francisco-based company, which raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation last year. The startup recently lost its CTO Barret Zoph and cofounder Luke Metz to OpenAI, along with several researchers. Another cofounder, Andrew Tulloch, departed for Meta last year. Thinking Machines Lab focuses on helping developers custom-build AI models and has attracted top talent despite the ongoing poaching. Meta and Thinking Machines Lab declined to comment.

Mira Murati, former OpenAI chief technology officer, has launched Thinking Machines Lab, an AI research company that closed a roughly $2 billion seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the startup at approximately $12 billion. Nvidia, AMD and Cisco participated in one of the largest early-stage funding rounds in tech history. Founded in February 2025, Thinking Machines Lab assembled researchers from OpenAI, Meta and other AI pioneers to build customizable, accessible AI systems. In October, the company launched Tinker, an API enabling developers to fine-tune large language models more efficiently. The startup faces challenges including intense competition for talent, with several high-profile employees departing to OpenAI and rivals. Murati's rapid progress from launch to product delivery marks a significant development in the evolving AI landscape.

Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, has quietly hired Neal Wu, a three-time gold medal winner at an international programming Olympiad. Wu is a founding member of AI coding startup Cognition, valued at $10 billion, and brother of its CEO Scott Wu. The hire demonstrates Thinking Machines Lab continues attracting top talent despite aggressive poaching from rivals like Meta. The startup recently lost cofounder Andrew Tulloch to Meta in a deal worth up to $1.5 billion, and CTO Barret Zoph along with two other founding members returned to OpenAI in January. Thinking Machines Lab, which helps developers train and customise AI models, raised $2 billion in seed funding at a valuation exceeding $10 billion before launching a product.