Thinking Machines Lab

Quick read

Thinking Machines Lab is an AI research and product company founded in February 2025 and headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, it raised a record $2 billion seed round at a $12 billion valuation within its first five months. It's best known for Tinker, a fine-tuning API for developers, and a May 2026 research preview of Interaction Models, a native multimodal architecture capable of 0.4-second response times.

Key facts

Founded

February 2025

Founders

Mira Murati, Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, Andrew Tulloch

Employees

169

Sectors

ai

Website

thinkingmachines.ai/

Mission

Build AI systems that are more understandable, customizable, and capable of real-time multimodal collaboration with humans, operating as a public benefit corporation.

Recent activity

• May 2026leadership
  Business Insider reported that nearly a third of Thinking Machines Lab's 42-person founding team — 13 people, including three of its six co-founders — have left since launch. Rivals Meta, OpenAI, and xAI drew departures with large compensation packages. Headcount has grown to over 150 people total. businessinsider.com
• Apr 2026leadership
  Thinking Machines Lab hired Weiyao Wang, an eight-year Meta researcher who contributed to multimodal perception systems and SAM3D. Total headcount reached approximately 140 at the time. TML has recruited more employees from Meta than from any other single employer. coinpulsehq.com
• Mar 2026investment
  Thinking Machines Lab announced a strategic partnership with NVIDIA that includes an undisclosed investment and a multi-year agreement to deploy one gigawatt of Vera Rubin computing capacity. Tracxn records a seed funding round closing on March 10, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Feb 2026leadership
  Neal Wu — a three-time gold medalist at the International Olympiad in Informatics and a founding member of AI coding startup Cognition — was reported to have been quietly working at Thinking Machines Lab since around January 2025. Neither Wu nor the company publicly confirmed his role. themoneytimes.media
• Jan 2026leadership
  Co-founder and CTO Barret Zoph, co-founder Luke Metz, and founding team member Sam Schoenholz all left Thinking Machines Lab to return to OpenAI. Murati announced on X that the company had "parted ways" with Zoph, citing "unethical conduct" in internal communications per Core Memory reporting. OpenAI's Fidji Simo confirmed the hires 58 minutes after Murati's post. techcrunch.com
• Jan 2026leadership
  Soumith Chintala, PyTorch co-creator and former Meta VP/Fellow of Engineering, was named CTO of Thinking Machines Lab, replacing Barret Zoph. Murati announced the appointment on X on January 15. startuptalky.com
• Oct 2025product
  Thinking Machines Lab launched its first product, Tinker — a tool that lets developers fine-tune open-weight AI models using techniques such as LoRA, with TML running jobs on its own training infrastructure via an API. builtin.com
• Jul 2025fundraise
  Thinking Machines Lab closed a $2 billion seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Accel, Nvidia, AMD, and Jane Street, at a $12 billion valuation — reported as the largest seed round in venture-capital history at the time. kineticstaff.com
• May 2026product
  Unveiled Interaction Models, a native multimodal architecture for real-time human-AI collaboration with sub-0.4-second response times; opened a limited research preview to collect feedback ahead of a broader 2026 release. theaiinsider.tech
• Apr 2026leadership
  Meta hired a fifth founding member, including cofounder Andrew Tulloch, bringing the total founding-team departures to roughly 13 of the original 42 people. businessinsider.com
• Mar 2026fundraise
  Announced a long-term strategic partnership with NVIDIA, including an undisclosed investment and a multi-year agreement to deploy one gigawatt of Vera Rubin computing capacity. axios.com
• Feb 2026leadership
  Hired Soumith Chintala, creator of PyTorch at Meta, as CTO, replacing the prior CTO role following the January leadership departures. businessinsider.com

Key people

Named individuals at the firm. We don't expose direct email or phone — use their LinkedIn for outreach.

• Mira Murati · Co-Founder & CEO
  Brief →
• Anna Goldie · CTO
• John Schulman · Co-Founder & Chief Scientist
• Barret Zoph · Co-founder & CTO
• Lilian Weng · Co-founder
• Andrew Tulloch · Co-founder

Sources

• Inside Thinking Machines Lab, Mira Murati's New AI Startup | Built In
• Thinking Machines Lab Raises a Record $2 Billion | WIRED
• Thinking Machines Lab commits to a gigawatt of Nvidia compute | Axios
• Thinking Machines Lab Unveils Full-Duplex AI | The AI Insider
• The Drama at Thinking Machines, a New A.I. Start-Up | NYT
• Thinking Machines Lab Sees Key Talent Leave for Meta, OpenAI, XAI | Business Insider
• Meta has snapped up a fifth founding member from Thinking Machines Lab | Business Insider
• Thinking Machines Lab - Wikipedia
• https://coinpulsehq.com/thinking-machines-lab-meta-talent/
• https://themoneytimes.media/2026/02/05/a-legendary-coder-has-been-quietly-working-at-mira-murati-s-thinking-machines-lab/
• https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/14/mira-muratis-startup-thinking-machines-lab-is-losing-two-of-its-co-founders-to-openai/
• https://startuptalky.com/news/thinking-machines-lab-appoints-pytorch-co-creator-soumith-chintala-as-cto/
• https://www.kineticstaff.com/from-openai-to-thinking-machines-mira-muratis-bold-leap-and-the-opportunities-opening-for-new-tech-founders/

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