Read the email Blue Origin’s CEO sent employees in response to allegations of a toxic workplacePUBLISHED FRI, OCT 1 20219:45 AM EDTUPDATED 2 HOURS AGOMichael Sheetz@THESHEETZTWEETZKEY POINTSBlue Origin CEO Bob Smith sent a companywide email to the employees of Jeff Bezos’ venture in response to allegations of a toxic workplace.Smith’s email, obtained by CNBC, seeks to “reassure” the company that Blue Origin’s spacecraft and rockets are safe, and that there’s “no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind.”
Quote from: RedLineTrain on 09/30/2021 09:32 pmQuote from: noogie on 09/30/2021 09:26 pmI would not expect any greater performance from them until the upper management is cleaned out and there is a cultural reset at the company.I'm skeptical that it's possible to reset any company's culture. The concept is appealing, but it doesn't seem to work that way in reality.Of course a companies culture can be reset. The company culture is not part of the buildings or machinery, it is the people. All it takes is the right leadership and enough time to put in place a culture that is viewed as responsible, respective, and worth building a career at.
Quote from: noogie on 09/30/2021 09:26 pmI would not expect any greater performance from them until the upper management is cleaned out and there is a cultural reset at the company.I'm skeptical that it's possible to reset any company's culture. The concept is appealing, but it doesn't seem to work that way in reality.
I would not expect any greater performance from them until the upper management is cleaned out and there is a cultural reset at the company.
I worked at Blue (no longer) for 4+ years including when Ally did as well. I find her specific accusations not credible at all and in some cases easily dismissed. Blue is certainly deserving of criticism but her sexism/burnout/safety allegations are totally false. 1) She was not a member of the technical stuff. She was a glorified Emcee at company meetings and made an internal news media website (that was shutdown because it was hosting ITAR info on foreign servers). She has no ability or knowledge to assess Blue's technical/safety capabilities. 2) The arbitration agreement is standard for almost all corporations now. When they rolled it out, it was NOT mandatory for current employees. You could opt out permanently with no repercussions (as I did). 3) There was an incident of an executive getting accused of sexual harassment as alluded to in her letter. He was investigated and fired (as was alluded to). Justice was done. 4) The company is so diversity obsessed I find it impossible to believe these allegations of a 'sexist/toxic' environment. I certainly never saw it in my team. Because of the Seattle tech influence its like a soviet style culture where you have to watch every word else someone report you to the woke police.5) The excess obsessiveness on diversity has led to some very bad hires. Being 'diverse/woman' is highly sought after for leadership promotions/hires.6) One reason Blue is not successful is because its so chill. You don't get to orbit on 40 hour work weeks. I don't understand her accusation that people are being worked till they 'burn out'. Overall I found the work-life balance verryyy accommodating (I left because I was bored). 7) There are always employees (mostly software engineers) trying to start shit and turn the company chat forum into a (liberal) political activist club. These people would whine over the most trivial of policies. On one notable occasion, they even started a 'petition' over (literally) being offended at some non-PC comments an Apollo Astronaut guest speaker said. I'm not surprised some of them are now whining to the media. Overall, I do not understand why Ally is coming out to the media now with such a flimsy general accusation or why it is a news story. She has not worked at the company for some years. I can only assume she is a loser trying to cash in on the woke grievance industry.
Despite working for the richest person in the world, some teams at Blue Origin lacked the investment they felt they needed to move at the pace Bezos expected, according to a former senior employee who worked on the company’s engines program, who requested anonymity because they feared professional retribution from Blue Origin. “I always hear what you hear on the news, ‘Oh, Jeff has given unlimited funds to Blue,’ ‘Blue has all this money,’” this person told me. “But they did not have the tools, they did not have the resources to get the job done.” The former employee and others told me that senior leadership promoted a culture that discouraged engineers from speaking up about safety concerns. “They did not want to hear them,” said this former employee, who attended weekly technical meetings where senior leaders and engineers would provide updates to Bezos. In her statement to The Atlantic, Mills said, “We stand by our safety record and believe that New Shepard is the safest space vehicle ever designed or built.”
On topic. Make your post worthwhile. I know it's a very dodgy situation, but let's not flap all over the internet about it. You're all capable of making interesting points.
It looks like 2023 will not be the year of the New Glenn's debut either.https://twitter.com/tobyliiiiiiiiii/status/1444068598461263879?s=19
Scoop – Turnover at Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is soaring, which sources described as a direct reflection on CEO Bob Smith.While Blue Origin says attrition has not exceeded 12.7% for the past 12 months, sources said turnover has passed 20% for 2021.A Blue Origin spokesperson, in a statement, said "We are seeing attrition rates comparable to those reported by other companies as part of what many are calling 'The Great Resignation.'"Headcount has grown by just over 450 people this year, from 3,503 to 3,957.In addition to those CNBC previously reported, Blue Origin's senior director of recruiting left last month and its VP of finance is leaving next week.The finance team has been especially hit hard by personnel loses, with a source saying Blue Origin budgeting is a nightmare. The Jacklyn ship was given as an example, which has had a number of setbacks and is 21% over budget.The central cause cited by those recently leaving, sources say, was Smith's strong push to end remote work and return to the office by September under project "Blue Back Together" – despite a petition signed by hundreds to go to hybrid work instead.As part of Smith's rush back to the office, sources say Blue Origin began a Covid vaccine disclosure program in May through "green dots" on company badges – but it was entirely on a good faith basis, with no proof of vaccination required.Bezos was initially supportive of bringing employees back by September, but sources say he later overruled Smith's push – aside from a limited number of workers, Blue Origin is still fully remote, with the return delayed to January.Blue Origin's orbital New Glenn was originally slated for its inaugural flight in 2020, but was delayed to Q4 2022 – a source familiar with the rocket's progress said that goal is extremely optimistic, saying the inaugural launch won't happen before 2024.Blue Origin's contract with ULA specified delivery of the first flight-ready BE-4 engines by April 2020, a source close to the deal said.But in early 2019, when the Engines team presented an update to Smith, every component of BE-4 had a technical issue.Multiple sources highlighted the disjointedness in the team around Smith.At one meeting, Smith told his team: "There’s nothing you guys can teach me that I don’t already know,” per two people with knowledge of the discussion.In another example, the relationship between Smith and his team had deteriorated to the point where Blue Origin hired a leadership consultant, who did hours of one-on-one interviews with the CEO's executives.The consultant told Smith the team unanimously thought he micromanages.Smith, per two sources: “You think you’re telling me something I don’t know? I’m damn proud of it, and have no intention to change."Blue Origin denied Smith made those comments.Bezos has yet to show he is unhappy with Smith, weekly spending just two afternoons with the company.Two sources said there is little to no chance that Bezos decided to run the company full-time himself.
Funny. It's not how many people left the company, it's which people left. The important ones don't even move the needle percentage wise.Sent from my Pixel 5a using Tapatalk
Of course a companies culture can be reset. The company culture is not part of the buildings or machinery, it is the people. All it takes is the right leadership and enough time to put in place a culture that is viewed as responsible, respective, and worth building a career at.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 09/30/2021 10:03 pmOf course a companies culture can be reset. The company culture is not part of the buildings or machinery, it is the people. All it takes is the right leadership and enough time to put in place a culture that is viewed as responsible, respective, and worth building a career at.This tends to be a very difficult thing to accomplish.
The problem is that the previous culture worked well for some people and poorly for others.
The very people you want to reset the culture are the ones who left because the previous culture was toxic for them...
...and the people who replaced them came in because they liked the previous culture. And all the incentives are set up the way the previous management wanted them.
The military has a way to deal with this - they essentially clean house of all the officers and NCOs in the problem area, bring in new people, and then do a lot of retraining of the enlisted. But they have a huge advantage that the enlisted are a captive audience.
If the launch of New Glenn is being pushed to 2024 I can think of two possible primary reasons. One is that they are just slow at development (many possible causes of this). The other is that with all the progress of the competition they think they need to debut with a reusable upper stage so they are not thought of as obsolete when they debut.
6) One reason Blue is not successful is because its so chill. You don't get to orbit on 40 hour work weeks. I don't understand her accusation that people are being worked till they 'burn out'. Overall I found the work-life balance verryyy accommodating (I left because I was bored).
Dear @JeffBezos In 2003 when you, myself, and Walt Anderson sat down for breakfast in Seattle, we conveyed to you our greatest concern, which was that rich people in the space arena would cause more harm than good. I had the same talk with Elon. You both promised to do right.
You promised to exert every means to do things right, to do everything possible to open the space frontier, as you and I consider ourselves "Gerry's kids". Elon has kept that promise. You have not. Please quit listening to those people who want to to act like a rich person.
Buying an NFL team, suing NASA because you and your team made a mistake in their bid, and working to stop fellow travelers from making this happen, is against everything that you believed in when you were at Princeton in your SEDS chapter. Please stop it.
Not only has the good will that Blue Origin had painstakingly built for almost 20 years been destroyed, the lack of progress in your engines is endangering national security by not delivering hardware to United Launch Alliance.
We have made amazing progress in the last 30 years, against amazing odds. Bringing private finance into this realm was our goal in the Space Frontier Foundation and the National Space Society. Many people spent their lives in this syssiphian task.
I don't think that you understand how thin the thread of our progress is, and how easy it would be for the powers that be to reverse our progress in the government from the left and right to support what is truly the solution to climate change and other dire societal needs...
for the 21st century. Unless you change course, have a change of heart, admit that you screwed up, and move to do the right thing, we all, including all of our space dreams, is going to suffer.There is no one to do this but you Jeff. We are asking you to do it.
Quote from: raspera on 10/01/2021 03:32 amI worked at Blue (no longer) for 4+ years including when Ally did as well. I find her specific accusations not credible at all and in some cases easily dismissed. Blue is certainly deserving of criticism but her sexism/burnout/safety allegations are totally false. 1) She was not a member of the technical stuff. She was a glorified Emcee at company meetings and made an internal news media website (that was shutdown because it was hosting ITAR info on foreign servers). She has no ability or knowledge to assess Blue's technical/safety capabilities. 2) The arbitration agreement is standard for almost all corporations now. When they rolled it out, it was NOT mandatory for current employees. You could opt out permanently with no repercussions (as I did). 3) There was an incident of an executive getting accused of sexual harassment as alluded to in her letter. He was investigated and fired (as was alluded to). Justice was done. 4) The company is so diversity obsessed I find it impossible to believe these allegations of a 'sexist/toxic' environment. I certainly never saw it in my team. Because of the Seattle tech influence its like a soviet style culture where you have to watch every word else someone report you to the woke police.5) The excess obsessiveness on diversity has led to some very bad hires. Being 'diverse/woman' is highly sought after for leadership promotions/hires.6) One reason Blue is not successful is because its so chill. You don't get to orbit on 40 hour work weeks. I don't understand her accusation that people are being worked till they 'burn out'. Overall I found the work-life balance verryyy accommodating (I left because I was bored). 7) There are always employees (mostly software engineers) trying to start shit and turn the company chat forum into a (liberal) political activist club. These people would whine over the most trivial of policies. On one notable occasion, they even started a 'petition' over (literally) being offended at some non-PC comments an Apollo Astronaut guest speaker said. I'm not surprised some of them are now whining to the media. Overall, I do not understand why Ally is coming out to the media now with such a flimsy general accusation or why it is a news story. She has not worked at the company for some years. I can only assume she is a loser trying to cash in on the woke grievance industry.Not a fan of Blue Origin but this comment sounds like the most accurate take on this matter. Abrams and co. are the kind of people who view themselves as above others, beyond reproach, The Special Ones - but who themselves cross all kinds of policy red lines like ITAR restrictions at will. They typically also have a very high opinion of themselves and their amazing talents, which is not shared by the vast majority of colleagues. Basically just a disgruntled Glassdoor review; cherry picking the kind of incidents that occur daily in any large organization of several thousand employees to settle a score.
How many more revelations will be required before it will finally be fashionable to honestly state that one would prefer Blue Origin NOT to succeed?Or is universal support for every space company a mandatory expectation in the community?EditI’m referring here to the apparently mandatory caveat every critical view of BO seems to include, usually along the lines of “I would love to be positive about BO, but they leave me no choice given their behavior”.How about some frankness instead: “Blue Origin is a vanity project, a threat to humanity’s expansion into space and they are holding back our progress, rather than contributing to it.”
