6 ms·

CEO of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket company resigns

30 points by mjbellantoni 3y ago

kristianp 3y ago
https://archive.is/G7hfA https://archive.is/G7hfA
kristianp 3y ago
Blue Origin is a joke. They seem to spend most of there effort building buildings. And the engines they're supplying for Vulcan Rockets are delayed.
throw9away6 3y ago
I heard that the management culture at blue was pretty toxic and Bob was a big part of the problem. They have many super talented hard working engineers but are run by accountants and a bunch of Boeing management rejects. That is a huge cause of organizational problems.
- travisporter 3y ago
  Ya I just linked above to an ars tech article
  - throw9away6 3y ago
    They hired a guy that is at best “mid” to replace guy that was proven terrible. It’s not looking great… Youll know it’s really gone downhill when they hire a woman to take the fall after a bunch of generic executives tanked the company.
  - MaxikCZ 3y ago
    It would be nice if along with the link you would provide information about what the link is about.
travisporter 3y ago
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/bob-smith-is-finally-gone-from-blue-origin-his-replacement-comes-from-amazon/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/bob-smith-is-finally-g...
raydiatian 3y ago
If a rocket company CEO can be replaced by an e-tail company exec, what do CEOs do that warrant such high earnings again
- nico 3y ago
  They network very effectively with other high net worth people
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  They remind us that we are all gorillas more quickly than others.
- geodel 3y ago
  Nothing much really. It is just they know a guy personally who can pay their high salary. If you know also someone like that just go get your high earning.
- SilverBirch 3y ago
  There a few snarky answers to your question but the real answer is simple: what CEOs do is extremely hard, they don't just need to build a rocket, they need to build a 1,000 person team capable of producing rockets. Despite what some people may think there's no 1 person who has all the knowledge required to put a rocket into space, so the CEO is responsible for bringing all that knowledge together. Take a look at the flip-side - this bad CEO has been basically fired, how many billions of dollars do you think he cost Bezos through his failure? Would you have paid someone twice his salary if you thought they could do better?
  - throw9away6 3y ago
    Yeah a good ceo would have saved a ton of money but where are you going to find one? It’s not like the system produces people who effectively quash toxic managing culture. More than likely the system and incentives actually promote the most toxic folks to the top. You would probably have equal or better results by promoting a promising mid level leader that’s still in touch with the group floor reality.
allthecybers 3y ago
This is a head scratcher for sure. Replace a bad CEO who over hired relative to productivity, with a guy who presided over an unprofitable consumer hardware business and had to layoff 10,000 people. You’d think between Amazon and the Bezos bucks they’d be able to find someone better.
- throw9away6 3y ago
  I don’t hear that blue over hired. They seem to be severely short headcount for the work that needs to be done. I think it’s more that inefficient management structure failed to capture process improvements so everything is just really hard and inefficient on a day to day pace. Most resources are dedicated to firefighting so it’s hard to make improvements. I had heard that Amazon had similar problems and instead of fixing recurring systematic process problems the Amazon model is to throw headcount at the problem.
ryzvonusef 3y ago
IIRC, Bezos used to sell $1Bn worth of Amazon stock every year to fund Blue Origin, not sure what the funding format is now. Blue Origin is proof that just throwing money at a problem does not achieve results, and saying the Musk's only contribution to SpaceX to was "using his money to buy success" is a fallacy. I don't how much you can look into his "engineering" prowess.. but clearly it was more than zero.
- leoh 3y ago
  So is Google X, fwiw
- zpeti 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - richbell 3y ago
    What does that have to do with communism?
    - wenebego 3y ago
      Both ideas upset them
- camgunz 3y ago
  I think there are more than 2 factors (money, benefactor) involved in the success/failure of a space company.
  - ryzvonusef 3y ago
    Exactly. Bezos' thought that if he was a benevolent benefactor and a good money source, if he gave Blue Origin a blank check and let them loose to "do rocketry", he would get good results. But his laissez-faire approach didn't make him a good boss, it made him a bad one. Blue Origin runs along like a headless chicken. He wouldn't have tolerated this shit in Amazon, why does he tolerate this in Blue Origin? But Musk proves that you need to get into the weeds, you need to manage it yourself, and ask the weird questions no one else dares ask. It's one thing to look at an invoice for a "rocket radio" for $25k or whatever and go, "I guess that's what it costs, here is the money, go buy two and a coffee for yourself". It's another thing to go "hang on a second! why exactly does it cost that much, why can't we use a $600 one that's commercially available?" Musk gets a lot of flak for not "listening to the experts" but him ignoring them and asking "but why?" like a toddler is what allowed SpaceX to massively cut not only cost but also time, a far valuable thing. This meant he did a lot of stupid things... but it also allowed him to discover a lot of pitfalls where a commercially available part was just as useful for the task as something "rocket grade". There are two anecdotes that prove this. (giving the cliff notes version, you can read his biographies to learn more about these) In one test, he tried to fix something by cutting away the broken part and taking the fuel penalty caused by the part being shorter (but still under the fuel budget margin). Naturally people said you shouldn't try such hacks and should just replace the part... but he tried and it worked and even NASA was impressed by it. He ended up discovering his margins and saved time, allowing them to proceed through the rest of the testing process. In another test, he tried to fix something by trying to glue something that should have been replaced. It ended up failing, and rightly people would say he was stupid to not listen to the experts... but here is what I took from it. For one, Bezos wouldn't be caught dead trying to glue things himself, he would never get his hands dirty like that...But then he wouldn't even what part was broken to attempt a hack anyways. He doesn't have the lay of the land like Musk does. But secondly, it shows how two billionaires with open chequebooks approach things differently. One would just cut a cheque to replace it, but learn nothing new... another would say, sure I will cut the cheque afterwards, but while we are here, why not try something risky? If it works, we learnt something new, if not, I had the cheque book handy anyways. I feel this approach is why SpaceX works. YMMV

30 points by mjbellantoni 3y ago

https://archive.is/G7hfA https://archive.is/G7hfA

Blue Origin is a joke. They seem to spend most of there effort building buildings. And the engines they're supplying for Vulcan Rockets are delayed.

throw9away6 3y ago

I heard that the management culture at blue was pretty toxic and Bob was a big part of the problem. They have many super talented hard working engineers but are run by accountants and a bunch of Boeing management rejects. That is a huge cause of organizational problems.

travisporter 3y ago
Ya I just linked above to an ars tech article
- throw9away6 3y ago
  They hired a guy that is at best “mid” to replace guy that was proven terrible. It’s not looking great… Youll know it’s really gone downhill when they hire a woman to take the fall after a bunch of generic executives tanked the company.
- MaxikCZ 3y ago
  It would be nice if along with the link you would provide information about what the link is about.

travisporter 3y ago

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/bob-smith-is-finally-gone-from-blue-origin-his-replacement-comes-from-amazon/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/bob-smith-is-finally-g...

raydiatian 3y ago

If a rocket company CEO can be replaced by an e-tail company exec, what do CEOs do that warrant such high earnings again

nico 3y ago
They network very effectively with other high net worth people
mensetmanusman 3y ago
They remind us that we are all gorillas more quickly than others.
geodel 3y ago
Nothing much really. It is just they know a guy personally who can pay their high salary. If you know also someone like that just go get your high earning.
SilverBirch 3y ago
There a few snarky answers to your question but the real answer is simple: what CEOs do is extremely hard, they don't just need to build a rocket, they need to build a 1,000 person team capable of producing rockets. Despite what some people may think there's no 1 person who has all the knowledge required to put a rocket into space, so the CEO is responsible for bringing all that knowledge together. Take a look at the flip-side - this bad CEO has been basically fired, how many billions of dollars do you think he cost Bezos through his failure? Would you have paid someone twice his salary if you thought they could do better?
- throw9away6 3y ago
  Yeah a good ceo would have saved a ton of money but where are you going to find one? It’s not like the system produces people who effectively quash toxic managing culture. More than likely the system and incentives actually promote the most toxic folks to the top. You would probably have equal or better results by promoting a promising mid level leader that’s still in touch with the group floor reality.

allthecybers 3y ago

This is a head scratcher for sure. Replace a bad CEO who over hired relative to productivity, with a guy who presided over an unprofitable consumer hardware business and had to layoff 10,000 people. You’d think between Amazon and the Bezos bucks they’d be able to find someone better.

throw9away6 3y ago
I don’t hear that blue over hired. They seem to be severely short headcount for the work that needs to be done. I think it’s more that inefficient management structure failed to capture process improvements so everything is just really hard and inefficient on a day to day pace. Most resources are dedicated to firefighting so it’s hard to make improvements. I had heard that Amazon had similar problems and instead of fixing recurring systematic process problems the Amazon model is to throw headcount at the problem.

ryzvonusef 3y ago

IIRC, Bezos used to sell $1Bn worth of Amazon stock every year to fund Blue Origin, not sure what the funding format is now. Blue Origin is proof that just throwing money at a problem does not achieve results, and saying the Musk's only contribution to SpaceX to was "using his money to buy success" is a fallacy. I don't how much you can look into his "engineering" prowess.. but clearly it was more than zero.

leoh 3y ago
So is Google X, fwiw
zpeti 3y ago
[flagged]
- richbell 3y ago
  What does that have to do with communism?
  - wenebego 3y ago
    Both ideas upset them
camgunz 3y ago
I think there are more than 2 factors (money, benefactor) involved in the success/failure of a space company.
- ryzvonusef 3y ago
  Exactly. Bezos' thought that if he was a benevolent benefactor and a good money source, if he gave Blue Origin a blank check and let them loose to "do rocketry", he would get good results. But his laissez-faire approach didn't make him a good boss, it made him a bad one. Blue Origin runs along like a headless chicken. He wouldn't have tolerated this shit in Amazon, why does he tolerate this in Blue Origin? But Musk proves that you need to get into the weeds, you need to manage it yourself, and ask the weird questions no one else dares ask. It's one thing to look at an invoice for a "rocket radio" for $25k or whatever and go, "I guess that's what it costs, here is the money, go buy two and a coffee for yourself". It's another thing to go "hang on a second! why exactly does it cost that much, why can't we use a $600 one that's commercially available?" Musk gets a lot of flak for not "listening to the experts" but him ignoring them and asking "but why?" like a toddler is what allowed SpaceX to massively cut not only cost but also time, a far valuable thing. This meant he did a lot of stupid things... but it also allowed him to discover a lot of pitfalls where a commercially available part was just as useful for the task as something "rocket grade". There are two anecdotes that prove this. (giving the cliff notes version, you can read his biographies to learn more about these) In one test, he tried to fix something by cutting away the broken part and taking the fuel penalty caused by the part being shorter (but still under the fuel budget margin). Naturally people said you shouldn't try such hacks and should just replace the part... but he tried and it worked and even NASA was impressed by it. He ended up discovering his margins and saved time, allowing them to proceed through the rest of the testing process. In another test, he tried to fix something by trying to glue something that should have been replaced. It ended up failing, and rightly people would say he was stupid to not listen to the experts... but here is what I took from it. For one, Bezos wouldn't be caught dead trying to glue things himself, he would never get his hands dirty like that...But then he wouldn't even what part was broken to attempt a hack anyways. He doesn't have the lay of the land like Musk does. But secondly, it shows how two billionaires with open chequebooks approach things differently. One would just cut a cheque to replace it, but learn nothing new... another would say, sure I will cut the cheque afterwards, but while we are here, why not try something risky? If it works, we learnt something new, if not, I had the cheque book handy anyways. I feel this approach is why SpaceX works. YMMV