BLUE ORIGIN IS BLEEDING MORE OF ITS TOP WORKERS TO ITS RIVALS
17 PEOPLE HAVE LEFT THE COMPANY OVER THE SUMMER ALONE.
Summer Losses
The hits just keep on coming for Blue Origin.
So far this year, Jeff Bezo’s company lost out on a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX and it was beaten by Virgin Galactic for the honor of sending the first billionaire CEO to space. Now a new report from CNBC reveals that Blue Origin has lost roughly 17 top employees this summer alone.
Many of Blue Origin’s former employees left for seemingly greener pastures such as Nitin Arora, the lead engineer on the company’s ill-fated lunar lander program, who is now joining rival SpaceX.
There’s also aerospace engineer Lauren Lyons who joined Firefly Aerospace as its chief operating officer.
CNBC reports that 15 others ranging from engineers, to senior executives, to administrators, to project managers have all left the company over the summer.
Talent Bribe
Despite this, Blue Origin presents a rosier outlook of its situation.
“Blue Origin grew by 850 people in 2020 and we have grown by another 650 so far in 2021,” a spokesperson for the company told CNBC. “In fact, we’ve grown by nearly a factor of four over the past three years. We continue to fill out major leadership roles in manufacturing, quality, engine design, and vehicle design. It’s a team we’re building and we have great talent.”
After Bezo’s flight to space this summer, Blue Origin rewarded all of its employees with a hefty $10,000 bonus. However, several anonymous employees told CNBC that the bonus was widely looked at as a way to retain employees in response to the amount that were leaving.
Frustrated Workforce
There’s probably not just any one reason why folks are leaving Blue Origin in droves. However, there do seem to be a few main factors at play.
For one, many employees seem downright embarrassed of their company’s highly public spats with the likes of NASA, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic, according to Ars Technica. These moves are also likely going to result in Blue Origin losing out on more work in the future.
“They will never get a real government contract after this,” an anonymous NASA source told Ars.
Also, if Blue Origin’s Glassdoor reviews are to be believed, current and former employees don’t have the most positive things to say about the stifling work culture and lack of job growth (nor do they care for CEO Bob Smith).
In either case, it’s always a bad look when your employees quit your company in droves. But it’s an even worse look when they go straight to your biggest competitors when they do quit.
READ MORE: Top talent departs Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin as NASA lander fight escalates [CNBC]
More on Blue Origin blues: Blue Origin Lead Lunar Lander Engineer Jumps Ship, Joins SpaceX
Dozens of key leaders reportedly left after Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight in July.
As the race to space continues, it was revealed that Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin has seen more than a dozen of its key leaders and engineers leave the company almost immediately after Bezos launched himself into space.
Many of the engineers who left were reportedly part of Blue Origin’s astronaut lunar lander program and moved on in the weeks following Bezos’ trip. Shortly after his spaceflight, the company gave all its full-time employees $10,000 USD no strings attached cash bonus. CNBC learned that two of its top engineers left to go to Blue Origin’s competitors, Elon Musk‘s SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace. Sources revealed that many thought the bonus was meant to try to entice the talent to stay in response to a number of employees filing notices to leave the company after the July flight.
Many of the unannounced departures cited frustrations with top management and a heavily bureaucratic structure, though the company emphasized that Blue Origin continues to grow its team. Since Bezos hired Bob Smith as CEO of the company in 2017, Blue Origin has failed to meet several deliverables. It remains to be seen if the upcoming projects will remain on track or be delayed even further.
Sophie Webster, Tech Times 22 August 2021,
Blue Origin has lost 17 key senior engineers and leaders since Jeff Bezos flew to space last month. He has lost top talent since he came back to Earth.
Many of the engineers resigned just weeks after the billionaire's spaceflight. Others have updated their LinkedIn pages over the past weeks.
Blue Origin Engineers Resigned
According to CNBC, the departures include New Shepard senior vice president Steve Bennet, national security sales director Scott Jacobs, chief of mission assurance Jess Ashby, New Glenn senior director Bob Ess, New Gless senior finance manager Bill Scammell and New Glenn first stage senior director Tod Byguist.
It also included senior manager of production testing Christopher Payne, senior propulsion design engineer Dave Sanderson, New Shepard technical project manager Nate Chapman, senior HLS human factors engineer Rachel Forman, and New Shepard lead avionics software engineer Huong Vo.
Also Read: Jeff Bezos, Crewmates Received 14-Hour Training for Blue Origin Spaceflight
The rest of the engineers who resigned are BE-4 controller lead integration and testing engineer Jack Nelson, BE-7 avionics hardware engineer Aaron Wang, rocket engine development engineer Gerry Hudak, and propulsion engineer Rex Gu.
Most of the Blue Origin engineers transferred to SpaceX.
The engineers and leaders who announced that they were leaving the company did not specify the reason why, but frustration with executive management and a slow bureaucratic structure is usually cited in employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor.
A spokesperson for Blue Origin stated that the company still grew despite the sudden resignation of their top employees. In 2020, the company grew by 850, and they have grown by 650 more in 2021.
The spokesperson added that the company has grown by almost a factor of four over the past three years. Blue Origin plans to immediately fill out the leadership roles in quality, manufacturing, vehicle design, and engine design. The company is currently building a new team.
Some of the top engineers who left the company were part of the lunar lander program. The space firm lost its bid for a NASA development contract in April when its competitor, SpaceX, was announced as the awardee under NASA's Human Landing System program, winning a contract with $2.9 billion.
However, despite the Government Accountability Office denying the space firm's protest of NASA's decision, the firm has continued to escalate the issue, according to Fox Business.
The space firm launched a public relations offensive against SpaceX. Blue Origin also sued NADA in federal court over the contract.
A $10,000 Cash Bonus
The space firm has almost 4,000 employees around the United States. Its headquarters is located in Kent, Washington, but it also has facilities in Van Horn, Texas, Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Huntsville, Alabama.
Ten days after Jeff Bezos flew to space, the space firm reportedly gave all of its full-time employees a $10,000 cash bonus. None of the contractors received the bonus, according to NBC News.
The company also confirmed that the bonus was a way for them to say "thank you" to the employees because they were able to achieve the milestone of launching people to space.
The bonus was also perceived as the company's way of attempting to entice their talents to stay in response to the number of employees filing notices to leave the firm after Bezos' space flight.
Related Article: Elon Musk Agrees that Blue Origin Should Spend More Time on Rocket Science Instead of Protesting NASA's HLS Decisions | Alleged $900 Million Spent on Lobbying
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Sophie Webster
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