So there have been two stories for me recently that just show how important and powerful leadership is. Perhaps more importantly, it seems like the culture that

So there have been two stories for me recently that just show how important and powerful leadership is. Perhaps more importantly, it seems like the culture that develops with bad or absent leadership can be really hard to correct to the point where it seems like cleaning house and starting over is the only way forward. The first is obviously Blue Origin. Some important points: - SpaceX was founded in 2002. Blue Origin in 2000; - Blue Origin may have achieved a vertical landing first but it was for a rocket that basically went straight up and came straight down as opposed to going near-orbital speeds (Mach 30), which is unquestionably much more technically challenging; - While SpaceX had delays in shipping (eg Falcon Heavy, Crew Dragon) the track record of the Falcon 9 at this point is undeniable; - Bezos made an extremely odd (to me) choice for leader of Blue Origin: the former CEO of Honeywell (to the point that I've read insiders call the company "Blue Honeywell"). The result seems to be that things are done incredibly slowly and the delays keep piling up. I wonder if the company is now so risk-averse they'd rather do nothing than risk doing something that will fail. Now compare that to SpaceX's Starship prototypes. Whatever magic touch Bezos has hasn't rubbed off on Blue Origin and I honestly think they're at risk of sliding into irrelevance. So the second example is of course (Activision) Blizzard. We actually have a good data point in how another company, Square Enix, handles Final Fantasy XIV (vs Blizzard and World of Warcraft). Some interesting points: - Blizzard doesn't engage with the WoW community. Compare this to Square Enix explaining the issues and timelines for bringing new servers online to alleviate queues; - It seems like Square Enix is still player-focused whereas all of Activision is clearly financially-focused at this point; - The horrific allegations against Blizzard fit into a narrative that Blizzard leadership and employees disdain their audience and almost certainly don't even play their own game; I could go on. So the reason I bring this up in the context of Blue Origin is because to me there's some striking similarities here. Blizzard is run by non-gamers. Blue Origin is run by Wall Street financial types not rocket men (or even engineers). Boeing is another data point in how horribly that can go wrong. A fish rots from the head they say. If leaders want to claim credit and get the rewards for good performance (eg Bobby Kotick's $150m bonus) then the buck stops with them with regards to the culture they've created or allowed to fester on their watch. But just virtue signaling to the market by replacing the head of the company isn't enough at this point (in either case). The fish doesn't reverse the rot when the head is cut off. It's going to take cleaning house to save Blue Origin (or Blizzard).