Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Faces Mass Exodus With Over A Dozen Key Leaders Quitting
Image via Blue Origin
Following Jeff Bezos’ momentous spaceflight, things have not been going well for the business mogul’s space venture, Blue Origin. Recent reports have surfaced that at least 17 key leaders and senior engineers left the company in recent months, according to CNBC.
Two of the firm’s former engineers, Nitin Arora and Lauren Lyons, announced that they’d jumped ship to Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace, respectively.
According to details confirmed by CNBC, leaders who left include New Shepard Senior Vice-President Steve Bennett, New Shepard Technical Project Manager Nate Chapman, Senior Propulsion Design Engineer Dave Sanderson, New Shepard Lead Avionics Software Engineer Aaron Wang, among many others.
While the staff members who left have not come out to provide their reasons for leaving, reviews on Glassdoor indicate many employees are frustrated with the firm’s executive management and slow, bureaucratic structure. However, when approached, a Blue Origin spokesperson highlighted the company’s growth instead.
“Blue Origin grew by 850 people in 2020 and we have grown by another 650 so far in 2021. 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,” the spokesperson told CNBC.
Despite the mass exodus, company founder Jeff Bezos isn’t stopping in his mission to land a contract with NASA for the lunar lander space program. Just this week, Blue Origin filed a lawsuit against the space agency, causing the project to be paused till November 1.
Though the firm doesn’t seem to be outwardly affected by the exit of so many high-level executives, it’s certainly made other competitors take notice. Could something more be brewing?
[via CNBC, cover image via Blue Origin]
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