7 ms·

Bezos' Blue Origin to layoff about 10% across its space, launch business

98 points by pinewurst 2y ago

nabla9 2y ago
NASA awarded NLS II launch services contract with on-ramp provision to Blue Origin, but that's not enough. Good luck getting more NASA contracts when Musk is in the government.
- globalnode 2y ago
  Yeah that's what I was thinking too. No more govt. contracts for at least 4 years.
- oskarkk 2y ago
  If Blue Origin will not get contracts they can sue, in much the same way as SpaceX sued many years ago to be able to compete for national security launches against the old monopoly of ULA.
tjpnz 2y ago
What happened to New Shepard? I thought the intent was to operate a space tourism business which could be scaled up to run at a profit.
- ramraj07 2y ago
  I also intend to get the nobel prize. Guess I and Bezos are in the same boat now.
  - ReptileMan 2y ago
    You can try the peace prize. They give it to everybody regardless of merit.
    - leosanchez 2y ago
      Kissinger was the last one awarded for merit. /s
      - riffraff 2y ago
        There was an old joke from a comedian about a far right politician, "he saved me from some fascist thugs once, they almost killed me but he said 'that's enough'". That's basically Kissinger's merit.
- asadotzler 2y ago
  I suspect with New Glenn finally up and running the tourism photo-ops-buying-time farce can come to an end, and I'll bet that's where many of these layoffs happened. Also, with New Glenn nearly ready for customers, it's time to shitcan the people who make that happen and replace them with people who can sell and deliver on launches. Why keep paying engineers when you can lay them off and hire some new ones in a few years when you're ready to consider a new rocket design.
- wongarsu 2y ago
  Bezos competing with Branson for just-barely-space tourism was fun for a while. But the impending decommissioning of the ISS is fueling a boom in space station development. The future of space tourism is in private space stations like the one Axiom is building. Which means in the future Bezos needs something comparable to Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule, not a small suborbital pleasure craft like New Shepard.
  - Mountain_Skies 2y ago
    The tech and infrastructure aren't anywhere near being where it needs to be yet, but it's interesting to note that Bezos is focused on O'Neill Cylinders while Musk is focused on Mars settlement. Both can benefit from there being space stations, but the dream of an O'Neill type space station seems more in line with space station development. Perhaps the two companies can have some overlap, especially when it comes to getting out of Earth's gravity well, but once in space, specialize in different frontiers.
    - wongarsu 2y ago
      I would cheer then on if they made a competition out of this: Can Bezos make an O'Neill Cylinder first, or will Musk be faster building a sustainable Mars colony. Both seem like far-off goals that will take decades to accomplish, but for very different reasons. Kind of reminiscent of the Cold War space efforts, when the USA was focusing on Mars and the USSR on Venus, both making great accomplishments.
blitzar 2y ago
> company-wide layoffs of “about 10 percent” of its employees, a sweeping readjustment as it aims to cut costs and ramp up rocket launches Some incredible management there - produce more with less people and less money. It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for 'em
- alecco 2y ago
  It's corporate doublespeak. But to be fair, corporations need to say every single thing in a positive light or else media would savagely quote them. See what happens when somebody big admits openly making a mistake. They get punished. This stupidity destroys an honest society. Media and social media are evil forces.
  - MangoCoffee 2y ago
    Bezos pumped billions into Blue Origin and still lost to SpaceX. Maybe scaling down and running it like a startup would be better. I wonder if Bezos is still pumping billions into Blue Origin even now
    - oskarkk 2y ago
      They don't have much revenue. They're selling some engines to ULA, they have some government contracts and quite big commercial contracts for launches that haven't happened yet, so Bezos is surely still pumping money to pay for these 14000 employees and other expenses.
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      Aren't they ready to finally test a heavy rocket capable of orbit? From the information they publish, it looks like stopping the race because you got tired just before the finish line. I wonder what part of the public information is false.
      - lupusreal 2y ago
        New Glenn has already reached orbit. Starship probably will soon (tests so far have been suborbital because they would be launches to LEO, which is dangerous if they can't be certain of controlled reentry. New Glenn launched to MEO which is safer because it won't be reentering.) The race hasn't stopped.
taurath 2y ago
How many contractors are also gonna go out? Those numbers are never included, but might be a staggering amount.
- snailmailstare 2y ago
  If they are actually raising the number of launches then it could also be a huge increase of contractors in areas the company never built its own competence.
  - taurath 2y ago
    Why have employees at all then?
rednafi 2y ago
America needs better labor protection laws. Every other day, I see drama like this that ripples across the globe. Fed rate has improved, inflation is rising again, and the surrounding conditions resemble those of the ZIRP era—aside from the actual rate. Meanwhile, corporations are making more profit than ever. There should be policies in place to prevent them from pulling crap like this whenever they feel like it.
- starspangled 2y ago
  > America needs better labor protection laws. Maybe so, although I don't know that Blue Origin is the best demonstration for the need. I doubt it's made a profit let alone returned investment. Bezos has supposedly been putting 1-2 billion into it every year, and CEO recently said it makes hundreds of millions per year. > Every other day, I see drama like this that ripples across the globe. What do you mean by ripples across the globe? > Fed rate has improved, inflation is rising again, and the surrounding conditions resemble those of the ZIRP era—aside from the actual rate. Meanwhile, corporations are making more profit than ever. There should be policies in place to prevent them from pulling crap like this whenever they feel like it. I don't think that's a good line to go down to basically say corporate profits in good times should be curtailed by forcing them to hold onto employees who are costing more than they make for the company. Because what do you do in bad times? Force the companies to go bankrupt, or weaken laws? I think labor protection should be significantly or entirely divorced from corporate performance, and profit-taking that is wildly disproportionate to value provided should be addressed by mostly by promoting competition.
  - chillingeffect 2y ago
    Clearly with Musk running the country, BO's chance of getting contracts is zero. I heard a talk today(1) that pointed out that pre-Musk was given too much power and now we see from BO's demise why. Competition is now impossible. (1) https://youtu.be/z8Lrd8FM6mA https://youtu.be/z8Lrd8FM6mA
    - oskarkk 2y ago
bilsbie 2y ago
What’s the strategy behind these? They never seemed money constrained before. Why now? And they just had their first launch.
black_13 2y ago
[dead]
extraduder_ire 2y ago
Is this going to end up like Amazon's tendency to churn 10% of employees a year?
bdcravens 2y ago
Considering that Chevron is laying off 20% of its global work force, 10% seems like a slight tightening of the belt.

98 points by pinewurst 2y ago

NASA awarded NLS II launch services contract with on-ramp provision to Blue Origin, but that's not enough. Good luck getting more NASA contracts when Musk is in the government.

globalnode 2y ago
Yeah that's what I was thinking too. No more govt. contracts for at least 4 years.
oskarkk 2y ago
If Blue Origin will not get contracts they can sue, in much the same way as SpaceX sued many years ago to be able to compete for national security launches against the old monopoly of ULA.

tjpnz 2y ago

What happened to New Shepard? I thought the intent was to operate a space tourism business which could be scaled up to run at a profit.

ramraj07 2y ago
I also intend to get the nobel prize. Guess I and Bezos are in the same boat now.
- ReptileMan 2y ago
  You can try the peace prize. They give it to everybody regardless of merit.
  - leosanchez 2y ago
    Kissinger was the last one awarded for merit. /s
    - riffraff 2y ago
      There was an old joke from a comedian about a far right politician, "he saved me from some fascist thugs once, they almost killed me but he said 'that's enough'". That's basically Kissinger's merit.
asadotzler 2y ago
I suspect with New Glenn finally up and running the tourism photo-ops-buying-time farce can come to an end, and I'll bet that's where many of these layoffs happened. Also, with New Glenn nearly ready for customers, it's time to shitcan the people who make that happen and replace them with people who can sell and deliver on launches. Why keep paying engineers when you can lay them off and hire some new ones in a few years when you're ready to consider a new rocket design.
wongarsu 2y ago
Bezos competing with Branson for just-barely-space tourism was fun for a while. But the impending decommissioning of the ISS is fueling a boom in space station development. The future of space tourism is in private space stations like the one Axiom is building. Which means in the future Bezos needs something comparable to Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule, not a small suborbital pleasure craft like New Shepard.
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago
  The tech and infrastructure aren't anywhere near being where it needs to be yet, but it's interesting to note that Bezos is focused on O'Neill Cylinders while Musk is focused on Mars settlement. Both can benefit from there being space stations, but the dream of an O'Neill type space station seems more in line with space station development. Perhaps the two companies can have some overlap, especially when it comes to getting out of Earth's gravity well, but once in space, specialize in different frontiers.
  - wongarsu 2y ago
    I would cheer then on if they made a competition out of this: Can Bezos make an O'Neill Cylinder first, or will Musk be faster building a sustainable Mars colony. Both seem like far-off goals that will take decades to accomplish, but for very different reasons. Kind of reminiscent of the Cold War space efforts, when the USA was focusing on Mars and the USSR on Venus, both making great accomplishments.

blitzar 2y ago

> company-wide layoffs of “about 10 percent” of its employees, a sweeping readjustment as it aims to cut costs and ramp up rocket launches Some incredible management there - produce more with less people and less money. It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for 'em

alecco 2y ago
It's corporate doublespeak. But to be fair, corporations need to say every single thing in a positive light or else media would savagely quote them. See what happens when somebody big admits openly making a mistake. They get punished. This stupidity destroys an honest society. Media and social media are evil forces.
- MangoCoffee 2y ago
  Bezos pumped billions into Blue Origin and still lost to SpaceX. Maybe scaling down and running it like a startup would be better. I wonder if Bezos is still pumping billions into Blue Origin even now
  - oskarkk 2y ago
    They don't have much revenue. They're selling some engines to ULA, they have some government contracts and quite big commercial contracts for launches that haven't happened yet, so Bezos is surely still pumping money to pay for these 14000 employees and other expenses.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    Aren't they ready to finally test a heavy rocket capable of orbit? From the information they publish, it looks like stopping the race because you got tired just before the finish line. I wonder what part of the public information is false.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      New Glenn has already reached orbit. Starship probably will soon (tests so far have been suborbital because they would be launches to LEO, which is dangerous if they can't be certain of controlled reentry. New Glenn launched to MEO which is safer because it won't be reentering.) The race hasn't stopped.

taurath 2y ago

How many contractors are also gonna go out? Those numbers are never included, but might be a staggering amount.

snailmailstare 2y ago
If they are actually raising the number of launches then it could also be a huge increase of contractors in areas the company never built its own competence.
- taurath 2y ago
  Why have employees at all then?

rednafi 2y ago

America needs better labor protection laws. Every other day, I see drama like this that ripples across the globe. Fed rate has improved, inflation is rising again, and the surrounding conditions resemble those of the ZIRP era—aside from the actual rate. Meanwhile, corporations are making more profit than ever. There should be policies in place to prevent them from pulling crap like this whenever they feel like it.

starspangled 2y ago
> America needs better labor protection laws. Maybe so, although I don't know that Blue Origin is the best demonstration for the need. I doubt it's made a profit let alone returned investment. Bezos has supposedly been putting 1-2 billion into it every year, and CEO recently said it makes hundreds of millions per year. > Every other day, I see drama like this that ripples across the globe. What do you mean by ripples across the globe? > Fed rate has improved, inflation is rising again, and the surrounding conditions resemble those of the ZIRP era—aside from the actual rate. Meanwhile, corporations are making more profit than ever. There should be policies in place to prevent them from pulling crap like this whenever they feel like it. I don't think that's a good line to go down to basically say corporate profits in good times should be curtailed by forcing them to hold onto employees who are costing more than they make for the company. Because what do you do in bad times? Force the companies to go bankrupt, or weaken laws? I think labor protection should be significantly or entirely divorced from corporate performance, and profit-taking that is wildly disproportionate to value provided should be addressed by mostly by promoting competition.
- chillingeffect 2y ago
  Clearly with Musk running the country, BO's chance of getting contracts is zero. I heard a talk today(1) that pointed out that pre-Musk was given too much power and now we see from BO's demise why. Competition is now impossible. (1) https://youtu.be/z8Lrd8FM6mA https://youtu.be/z8Lrd8FM6mA
  - oskarkk 2y ago

bilsbie 2y ago

What’s the strategy behind these? They never seemed money constrained before. Why now? And they just had their first launch.

black_13 2y ago

[dead]

extraduder_ire 2y ago

Is this going to end up like Amazon's tendency to churn 10% of employees a year?

bdcravens 2y ago

Considering that Chevron is laying off 20% of its global work force, 10% seems like a slight tightening of the belt.