Office Affair Triggers Termination Drama as Thinking Machines Recruits OpenAI Team

**Thinking Machines Lab** is a San Francisco-based AI research and product company founded in February 2025 by former OpenAI CTO **Mira Murati** and a powerhouse team of OpenAI alumni, including John Schulman, Barret Zoph, Lilian Weng, Andrew Tulloch, and Luke Metz.[1][2][5] Structured as a public benefit corporation, it empowers Murati with a deciding board vote and gives founding shareholders 100x weighted votes, prioritizing long-term innovation over short-term gains.[1] The lab emerged from a talent exodus at OpenAI, quickly assembling ~30 elite researchers from Meta AI, Mistral AI, and others by launch.[1][5] Its mission tackles key AI gaps: democratizing frontier model knowledge, enabling easy customization, and fostering human-AI collaboration through multimodal, adaptable systems focused on **meta-learning**—teaching AI *how* to learn efficiently rather than brute-forcing scale.[3][4] This pragmatic approach emphasizes open science, explainability, science-grade models in programming and discovery, and robust infrastructure, contrasting closed-off industry giants.[4][5] A landmark **achievement** came in July 2025 with a record-breaking $2 billion seed round at $12 billion valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz and backed by Nvidia, AMD, Cisco, Jane Street, and even Albania's government ($10 million investment).[1][2][3] In October 2025, it unveiled **Tinker**, its debut product—an API simplifying fine-tuning of open-source models for developers, bypassing costly distributed computing and GPU hurdles. Currently in free beta for select users, Tinker embodies the lab's vision of accessible, specialized AI.[2][3] As of late 2025, Thinking Machines Lab thrives with "Thinky" buzz on social platforms, positioning as a talent-war winner building flexible, personalized AI for every field—from engineering breakthroughs t

OpenAI is a leading artificial intelligence research and deployment company founded in 2015 with the mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—AI systems generally smarter than humans—benefits all of humanity[1][2]. Initially established as a nonprofit, OpenAI’s goal has always been to advance safe and broadly beneficial AI technologies. In 2019, OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary to scale its research and deployment efforts while keeping mission-aligned governance. As of October 2025, this structure evolved into the OpenAI Foundation (nonprofit) governing the OpenAI Group, a public benefit corporation (PBC). This unique corporate form legally binds OpenAI Group to prioritize its mission alongside commercial success, ensuring broader stakeholder interests are considered[1]. The Foundation holds equity in the Group, aligning incentives for long-term impact and growth. Microsoft owns approximately 27% of OpenAI Group, with employees and investors holding the rest[1]. OpenAI is renowned for pioneering breakthroughs in large language models and AI applications. Its products like ChatGPT revolutionized human-computer interaction by enabling natural language conversations and task automation. OpenAI continuously innovates by integrating AI into business tools—for example, its recent launch of “company knowledge” in ChatGPT Business harnesses AI to aggregate and analyze internal company data from apps like Slack, Google Drive, and GitHub, enhancing workplace productivity and decision-making[3]. Key achievements include advancing AI safety research, reducing hallucinations in language models, and expanding AI’s accessibility through products like Codex and ChatGPT Atlas (a browser with ChatGPT integration)[2]. OpenAI’s balanced governance model and cutting-edge research position it uniquely at the intersection of technology innovation and ethical AI development, making it a focal point in business and technology news globally.

Meta Platforms, Inc., known simply as Meta, is a leading American multinational technology company headquartered in Menlo Park, California, best known for its ownership of major social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads[1]. Founded in 2004 as TheFacebook, Inc., it rebranded to Facebook, Inc. in 2005 and adopted the Meta name in 2021 to signal its strategic pivot towards building the "metaverse"—a digital ecosystem integrating virtual and augmented reality technologies[1]. Meta primarily generates revenue through advertising, which constituted approximately 97.8% of its total income as of 2023[1]. The company is a key player among Big Tech firms, alongside Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon, with a market capitalization of about $1.585 trillion as of early 2025[6]. It has a vast global user base, with Facebook alone boasting hundreds of millions of users in countries like India (378 million), the U.S. (194 million), Indonesia, and Brazil, supported by extensive localization efforts for over 111 languages[6]. Meta invests heavily in research and development, spending $35.3 billion in 2022, making it the world’s third-largest R&D spender[1]. Its current focus emphasizes artificial intelligence (AI) and superintelligence, with major investments such as a multibillion-dollar funding round in AI startup Scale AI in 2025, and the development of advanced AI models like Llama 4.1 and 4.2 through its Meta Superintelligence Labs[1][2]. This AI-driven shift reflects Meta’s evolving mission to empower individual users through personalized digital experiences, moving beyond its original social networking identity[2]. In addition to social media and AI, Meta pursues innovation in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) hardware, notably through products like Meta Quest VR headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses,