Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is ‘sexist and toxic workplace racing Elon Musk and Richard Branson’, 21 employees say
An open letter signed by 21 current and former employees of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin claims the rocket company fosters a ‘toxic’ and sexist environment, leaving staffers feeling ‘dehumanized,’ and causing some to have suicidal thoughts.
The damning letter also accuses the spaceflight company, created by Amazon founder Bezos, of sacrificing safety to get ahead in the space race between billionaires.
‘Competing with other billionaires – and ‘making progress for Jeff’ – seemed to take precedence over safety concerns that would have slowed down the schedule,’ wrote Alexandra Abrams, former head of employee communications at Blue Origin.
Abrams, who was fired from Blue Origin in 2019, signed her name alongside 20 anonymous current and former employees.
‘When Jeff Bezos flew to space this July, we did not share his elation,’ the letter says. ‘Instead, many of us watched with an overwhelming sense of unease. Some of us couldn’t bear to watch at all.’
Detailed in the letter are accusations that Blue Origin and Bezos promote a culture of toxicity and sexism.
According to the letter, numerous senior leaders at Blue Origin have been ‘known to be consistently inappropriate with women’.
The letter acknowledges that gender gaps are common within the space industry, but continues to detail the extensive sexism employees faced.
‘Another former executive frequently treated women in a condescending and demeaning manner, calling them “baby girl”, or “baby doll”, or “sweetheart” and inquiring about their dating lives.’
This behavior was so well known, the letter alleges, that women at the company would warn new female employees to stay away from that particular executive, who was only fired when he physically groped a female subordinate.
With more than 3,600 employees mapped across the globe, the company’s entire senior technical and program leaders are men. The overwhelming majority of staff are also white and male, the letter states.
Employees who raised concerns regarding the safety of the company’s rockets were dismissed as Bezos raced to compete with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Virgin Galactic founder Ricard Branson.
Safety concerns are another highlight of the letter, which alleges that ‘some of the engineers who ensure the very safety of the rockets’ were either forced out or paid off after internally voicing criticisms.
In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration said they are reviewing the safety concerns brought up in the essay.
Staffers also say they have raised environmental concerns at company town halls that have been left largely unaddressed. The company’s headquarters that opened last year in Kent, are not LEED-certified and were built on wetlands that were drained for construction, they say.
Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith personally told one of the letter’s signees to not ‘make it easy’ for employees to ask questions at town halls, one of the only available forums for live discussion.
Inner critics who spoke up were also forced out, according to the letter.
The toxicity goes as far as senior leadership looking to take a toll on their employees’ mental health.
According to the letter, memos from those leaders reveal the company needs to ‘get more out of our employees’ and that employees should consider it a ‘privilege to be a part of history’.
A directive of the company, in pursuit of SpaceX, in that ‘burnout was part of their labor strategy’, the letter claims.
Former and current employees say their experience at Blue Origin was ‘dehumanizing’ and that they are ‘terrified of speaking out against the wealthiest man on the planet’.
Around the time that the letter was published, Musk surpassed Bezos as the richest man in the world and said he would send the Amazon founder ‘a silver medal’.
Not that it would help Bezos’ staff, some of whom have even experienced suicidal thoughts after having their ‘passion for space manipulated in such a toxic environment.’
‘If this company’s culture and work environment are a template for the future Jeff Bezos envisions, we are headed in a direction that reflects the worst of the world we live in now,’ the letter says.
The letter was published Thursday on the website of Lioness, an online platform that often works with whistleblowers.
A Blue Origin spokesperson told Metro.co.uk that ‘Ms. Abrams was dismissed for cause two years ago after repeated warnings for issues involving federal export control regulations’.
‘Blue Origin has no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind. We provide numerous avenues for employees, including a 24/7 anonymous hotline, and will promptly investigate any new claims of misconduct,’ the spokesperson stated.
‘We stand by our safety record and believe that New Shepard is the safest space vehicle ever designed or built.’
Current and ex-Blue Origin workers
claim Jeff Bezos' rocket company's
culture is 'toxic'
USA TODAY
Nearly two dozen current and former employees including the company's former head of employee communications allege billionaire Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin has a toxic workplace.
In an essay posted online Thursday on the site Lioness, published Thursday, present and past Blue Origin workers including Alexandra Abrams, the company's former head of employee communications, said. the employees say they thought they joined the aerospace exploration company "to open access to space for the benefit of humanity."
Instead, they claim they were subjected to a harmful, sexist environment in which women are sexually harassed and safety concerns are disregarded.
A Blue Origin spokesperson said in a statement late Thursday that Abrams was "dismissed for cause two years ago after repeated warnings for issues involving federal export control regulations."
The spokesperson also said that Blue Origin has "no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind. We provide numerous avenues for employees, including a 24/7 anonymous hotline, and will promptly investigate any new claims of misconduct. We stand by our safety record and believe that New Shepard is the safest space vehicle ever designed or built."
The workers' claims come more than two months after Bezos poured billions to fly out into space safely in his New Shephard rocket with three other passengers on board on July 20.
In the essay, the workers said they've had experiences they described as "dehumanizing," are "terrified of the potential consequences for speaking out against the wealthiest man on the planet."
Bezos, the founder and ex-CEO of Amazon, is reportedly worth more than $192 billion.
"We believe exploring the possibilities for human civilization beyond Earth is a necessity," they wrote. "But if this company’s culture and work environment are a template for the future Jeff Bezos envisions, we are headed in a direction that reflects the worst of the world we live in now, and sorely needs to change."
Even though workforce gender gaps are common in the space industry, the employees allege that Blue Origin has a "particular brand of sexism." All of the senior technical and program leaders are men, they said, and "numerous" senior leaders have been known to be consistently inappropriate with women."
According to the essay, one former executive frequently treated women in "a condescending and demeaning" manner, calling them “baby girl,” “baby doll,” or “sweetheart” while asking about their dating lives.
"His inappropriate behavior was so well known that some women at the company took to warning new female hires to stay away from him, all while he was in charge of recruiting employees," the essay said. "It appeared to many of us that he was protected by his close personal relationship with Bezos – it took him physically groping a female subordinate for him to finally be let go."
The workers said that Blue Origin's culture also took a toll on their mental health.
Many workers have "experienced periods of suicidal thoughts after having their passion for space manipulated in such a toxic environment." They also wrote that one senior program leader who spent decades in the aerospace and defense industry said working at Blue Origin was "the worst experience of her life."
Nearly two dozen current and former employees published an essay slamming Blue Origin’s safety and ethics culture
By Joey Roulette Sep 30, 2021, THE VERGE
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/69932029/1177532676.jpg.0.jpg)
Twenty-one current and former employees of Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin published a damning essay on Thursday saying the company “turns a blind eye to sexism, is not sufficiently attuned to safety concerns, and silences those who seek to correct wrongs.”
Co-authored by Blue Origin’s former head of employee communications Alexandra Abrams, the essay describes multiple accounts of sexist and dismissive behavior from some of the company’s “one-hundred percent” male senior technical and program leaders and says “professional dissent at Blue Origin is actively stifled.”
The employees accuse the company’s CEO, Bob Smith, of brushing off dissent by discouraging staff from raising questions during internal town halls, asking a colleague to track “troublemakers or agitators,” and forcing out employees for speaking out about safety issues related to Blue Origin’s New Shepard tourism rocket. “Smith’s inner circle of loyalists makes unilateral decisions, often without the buy-in of engineers, other experts, or senior leaders across various departments,” the employees say.
In an interview with CBS this morning, Abrams, speaking out for the first time, said she was fired by Blue Origin in 2019, quoting her manager as saying, “Bob and I can’t trust you anymore,” referring to the CEO. “You cannot create a culture of safety and a culture of fear at the same time,” Abrams said in the interview. “I’ve gotten far enough away from it that I’m not afraid enough to let them silence me anymore.”
In a statement to The Verge, a Blue Origin spokesperson said, “Blue Origin has no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind. We provide numerous avenues for employees, including a 24/7 anonymous hotline, and will promptly investigate any new claims of misconduct.”
The spokesperson also said Abrams was fired “after repeated warnings for issues involving federal export control regulations,” a claim Abrams denied to CBS News.
The essay, published on Lioness, a platform for whistleblowers, indicated Blue Origin sometimes overlooked safety issues to favor speed amid heated competition with other billionaire-backed companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX or Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. “Competing with other billionaires — and ‘making progress for Jeff’ — seemed to take precedence over safety concerns that would have slowed down the schedule,” the employees said.
A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration, which manages launch safety and oversees flights of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, said, “the FAA takes every safety allegation seriously, and the agency is reviewing the information.”
In the essay, the employees also recounted sexism from colleagues, including a former, unnamed executive who would call female employees “baby girl,” “baby doll,” or “sweetheart” and ask about their dating lives. “It appeared to many of us that he was protected by his close personal relationship with Bezos — it took him physically groping a female subordinate for him to finally be let go,” they said. Another passage included:
Additionally, a former NASA astronaut and Blue Origin senior leader once instructed a group of women with whom he was collaborating: “You should ask my opinion because I am a man.” We found many company leaders to be unapproachable and showing clear bias against women. Concerns related to flying New Shepard were consistently shut down, and women were demeaned for raising them. When one man was let go for poor performance, he was allowed to leave with dignity, even a going-away party. Yet when a woman leader who had significantly improved her department’s performance was let go, she was ordered to leave immediately, with security hovering until she exited the building five minutes later.
On top of the safety and sexism claims, the letter attacks Bezos and Blue Origin’s record on environmental issues. The employees say while Bezos touts his climate initiatives, Blue Origin has no plans to be carbon neutral or reduce its environmental footprint and that some machinery ordered by the company was done so without considering its waste levels or whether it’d need permits to manage the waste.
The employees also described harsh and demanding conditions that have “taken a toll on the mental health of many of the people who make Blue Origin’s operations possible.” The essay cites internal memos, including one that cast SpaceX as a model, “in that ‘burnout was part of their labor strategy.’”
Blue Origin has struggled with internal strife in the past.
In 2020, The Verge reported that Blue Origin employees were outraged by the pressure they faced from senior leadership to continue in-person work and travel for a New Shepard test launch during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when much of the country was locking down to curb the virus’s spread. Responding to employee concerns in one meeting, Jeff Ashby, the company’s senior mission assurance director and a former NASA astronaut, said: “I would say that you should ask yourself, as an individual, are you acting as a toxin in the organization, fanning discontent, or are you really trying to help our senior leaders make better decisions?”
Update, September 30th, 2:35PM ET: Adds additional information from the essay and a statement from the FAA.
Blue Origin employees say
they wouldn't feel safe riding
the company's rockets and
that it's 'lucky that nothing
has happened'
Twenty-one Blue Origin employees published a whistle-blowing open letter on Thursday.
Some said they wouldn't ride a Blue Origin rocket due to safety concerns.
No federal agency regulates passenger safety on private spaceflights.
In a scalding open letter, a group of current and former Blue Origin employees said they would not fly aboard the company's rocket because they don't think it's safe enough.
Jeff Bezos, who founded the company in 2000, launched to the edge of space aboard its New Shepard rocket in July. Since that flight, Blue Origin has opened ticket sales, and four customers are scheduled to launch on October 12. But the new letter says that Blue Origin's leadership has ignored employees' safety concerns in favor of "making progress for Jeff" and accelerating New Shepard's launch schedule.
The only named author on the letter is Alexandra Abrams, who used to head Blue Origin's employee communications. She published the essay on the website Lioness on Thursday but said that 20 other current and former Blue Origin employees cowrote it. None of those coauthors were named, but CBS News has spoken with five of them. The letter also made claims of a culture of sexism, harassment, and intolerance to dissent at Blue Origin.
New Shepard has flown successfully 15 times without people on board and once with passengers, when Bezos went. The rocket has an emergency system that can jettison the passenger capsule away from a failing rocket if necessary.
But, the letter said: "In the opinion of an engineer who has signed on to this essay, 'Blue Origin has been lucky that nothing has happened so far.' Many of this essay's authors say they would not fly on a Blue Origin vehicle."
Two former Blue Origin employees confirmed to CBS News that they would not feel comfortable riding a Blue Origin spacecraft.
In a statement emailed to Insider, Blue Origin said that Abrams "was dismissed for cause two years ago after repeated warnings for issues involving federal export control regulations." Abrams has denied that she received any such warnings.
At least 17 top engineers and leaders left Blue Origin this summer, many of them in the week after Bezos' spaceflight, CNBC reported in August. The reasons for their departures aren't clear, though Glassdoor ratings suggest that just 19% of Blue Origin employees approve of its CEO, Bob Smith. That's compared to a 92% approval rating for SpaceX's Elon Musk and 77% for United Launch Alliance's Tory Bruno.
Blue Origin's statement also said: "We stand by our safety record and believe that New Shepard is the safest space vehicle ever designed or built."
But the open letter said that safety was "the driving force" behind the decision to publish for many of its coauthors. It also said that in 2018, when someone new took over one particular team, the manager discovered that the team had documented "more than 1,000 problem reports" related to the company's rocket engines. None of those reports had been addressed, the letter said.
What's more, the letter added that Blue Origin has frequently denied requests "for additional engineers, staff, or spending," while adding more responsibilities to teams that are too small to handle them.
"Employees are often told to 'be careful with Jeff's money,' to 'not ask for more,' and to 'be grateful,'" the letter said.
Commercial rocket passengers fly at their own risk
Spaceflight is always risky. About 1% of US human spaceflights have resulted in a fatal accident, according to an analysis published earlier this year.
"That's pretty high. It's about 10,000 times more dangerous than flying on a commercial airliner," George Nield, a coauthor of that report, previously told Insider. Nield formerly served as the Federal Aviation Administration's associate administrator and led its Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
"In order to learn how to do this safer, more reliably, and more cost-effectively, many people believe we need to keep gaining experience by having more and more of these flights," he added.
No federal agency regulates the safety of passengers on private commercial spaceflights. For now, the Federal Aviation Administration's job is to ensure only that rocket launches are safe for people on the ground and don't pose a threat to other aircraft.
But in a statement emailed to Insider, the FAA said it was "reviewing" the open letter.
"The FAA takes every safety allegation seriously, and the agency is reviewing the information," the statement said.
FAA to Review Letter That Criticizes Blue Origin on Safety
Jeff Bezos’ space company that claims the company prioritized speed over safety on some of its rockets.
The letter, published Thursday online, raised safety-related concerns and alleged instances of sexual harassment at Blue Origin LLC. One former employee at the company,
Alexandra Abrams, is listed as a public signer of the letter and confirmed she signed it. The letter said 20 other current and former employees also signed but didn’t name them.
In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration said it was looking into safety allegations made in the letter and that it takes all such claims seriously. The aviation-safety agency regulates space launches and re-entries of space vehicles, as well as the operation of commercial launch sites.
Blue Origin said in a statement it stands by its safety record. It said that Ms. Abrams was fired for cause two years ago after repeated warnings about federal export control issues.
Ms. Abrams, who worked on employee communications at the Kent, Wash.-based company, said she never received warnings from management about that topic. She said what ultimately led to Blue Origin firing her was her objection to the company’s move to handle any sexual-harassment claims at Blue Origin in arbitration as per agreements with employees.
Blue Origin, founded by Mr. Bezos more than two decades ago, employs around 3,500 workers at facilities around the country, developing rockets, engines and other space vehicles. In July, the company completed its first space launch with people on board, flying the former Amazon chief executive and three others to the edge of space.
The letter said that at Blue Origin, competing with other space-industry billionaires like Elon Musk and demonstrating progress to Mr. Bezos “seemed to take precedence over safety concerns that would have slowed down the schedule.” It claimed that last year, company leaders wanted to scale up the number of flights on its New Shepard rocket, but some staff believed the push was compromising flight safety.
Blue Origin said it believes New Shepard “is the safest space vehicle ever designed or built.”
In July, before the company’s space flight with Mr. Bezos on board, the FAA issued a license to Blue Origin permitting it to launch people into space.
One unidentified former Blue Origin executive, according to the letter, called women terms like “baby girl” and asked about their dating lives before being let go because he groped a female subordinate.
Blue Origin declined to comment on specific allegations. In a statement, the company said it has no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind.
“We provide numerous avenues for employees, including a 24/7 anonymous hotline, and will promptly investigate any new claims of misconduct,” the company said.
