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> 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 mana

> 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.
- thih9 2y ago
  > corporations need to say every single thing in a positive light or else media would savagely quote them I call BS - don’t humanize corporations, they do what they can to maximize profit. Media is being helpful; without media’s work corporations would still present things in good light for them, only now without third parties involved. Consumers would not benefit from that.
  - Mountain_Skies 2y ago
    What about media corporations? The vast majority of media are part of a small number of huge profit seeking corporations.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      They aren't exactly guilt free either if bewtween the horrible compensation model and a revenue incentive that decreases the quality of their wriing. But two wrongs don't make a right.
    - thih9 2y ago
      I guess one more reason not to claim that corporations are suffering from evil media’s savagery - they’re all corporations after all. Plus, having corporations keep each other in check still sounds helpful to me.
      - marcosdumay 2y ago
        > Plus, having corporations keep each other in check still sounds helpful to me. For the ~4 centuries we've had stuff similar to corporations, that never worked anywhere. Corporations will always cartelize and try to protect each other.
        thih9 2y ago
        Note that I said this sounds helpful, I never said this should be the only measure. There are laws against anticompetitive behavior. Also, about corporations always protecting each other, this looks incorrect, e.g.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_warfare https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_warfare
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >See what happens when somebody big admits openly making a mistake. They get punished. Yes, actions have consequences. It's not like these are honest, unavoidable misakes these businesses make. They ruthlessly plan around these concepts, and any failure has employees pay the most.
- wesselbindt 2y ago
  > media would savagely quote them I think you're confused as to which side of the employer-employee struggle the media aligns itself with. All major news outlets are owned by the owning class, whose interests align with those of Bezos and other employers. Recently, a member of the owning class did a literal actual Hitler salute on stage twice, and the closest the mass media came to calling a spade a spade was saying things like "alleged resemblance to a Roman salute".
  - zmgsabst 2y ago
    https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403 https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403
    - wesselbindt 2y ago
      Real apartheid defense league moment
    - chillingeffect 2y ago
      It'a funny. I always thought of the ADL as having a hair-trigger, over-blaming. Then this happened and I can't figure out if they're just trying to survive? If they're more interested in protecting certain groups than others? Doesnt make sense.
      - eastbound 2y ago
        Maybe it was, genuinely, too much excitement when saluting the crowd. It is obvious to me and I’m really surprised so many people were talked into believing it was anything else than a mistake. If he really wanted to come out as a “Charlie Chapplin” fan, he would have repainted his brands in the associated colours.
        42772827 2y ago
        He did it twice and never apologized.
        2y ago
- gnz11 2y ago
  > Media and social media are evil forces. We've got to get over this "all media bad" mentality. It's counterproductive and not helping anything. Sure, there are garbage media organizations publishing to maximize profits but there are also all kinds of organizations doing stellar journalism these days too. Also, "media" is such a broad term that it's almost meaningless.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    > but there are also all kinds of organizations doing stellar journalism these days too They just don't have any viewership. It may be worth studying why and what can be done to fix this. But I bet one will get stuck with "it's because of government corruption" pretty soon and have no place to move from there.
  - Kubuxu 2y ago
    Could you list few? I’ve stopped following media in general because everything I could find was profit maximisation through outrage and sensationalism. So I would really appreciate something that isn’t that.
    - janderson215 2y ago
      Foreign Affairs is an exception I’ve recently discovered that seems to go for level-headed criticism versus a more panicky take. Here’s an example article: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-a...
  - jajko 2y ago
    Please stop dragging rest of humanity to your side, there is no "we" in your camp, and I agree with OP in the meaning of his/her words. Its a net loss for humanity, as is all political correctness instead of objective truth which should always be pursued. Maybe a good idea on paper, but it failed to actually change anything or anybody, fringe people just got pushed into their own siloed groups and there is no coming back, thanx to 'media'. Now with ie US elections of gradually in Europe too we saw and see how all fringe quietly became majority at the end.
- adverbly 2y ago
  Well said. It's the complete opposite of a growth mindset. It's a sales mindset. Our society only wants to hear from con-men, and so (big surprise here) we tend to put literal con-men in leadership positions. I'd love to hear some recommendations on how to change the incentives around this.
bloomingkales 2y ago
He already got to space. It's like releasing a triple A game, you release the staff after it's done. It's sociopathically optimal, and lauded in certain circles as a virtue.
oskarkk 2y ago
SpaceX has 13000 employees and has launched more than 100 orbital rockets into space last year (and they're also manufacturing thousands of satellites and doing other things). They were able to launch 20 rockets in a year having 5000 employees. ULA is launching couple of rockets a year with 2700 employees. Blue Origin was developing their rocket for the last 10 years and has just launched it for the first time. The whole company doesn't seem to be very efficient.
- _fizz_buzz_ 2y ago
  I see your point, but going from 0 rocket launches to 1 rocket launch probably takes a lot more work than going from 1 rocket launch to x number of rocket launches.
  - oskarkk 2y ago
    Of course, but SpaceX was able to go to 1 orbital rocket launch with 1000 employees in less than 5 years. ULA also has a new rocket. New Glenn is bigger than Falcon 9 or Vulcan, but it certainly could have been developed and built with less people. Blue Origin is bloated because it isn't functioning like a normal company on market, that has to earn money to function, it exists because Bezos has been throwing money at it for 20 years.
    - chii 2y ago
      spacex also couldnt earn money prior to their ability to launch rockets. It's only recently that their successful launches of starlink, and various other satellites earned them any cash.
      - oskarkk 2y ago
        They're successfully launching rockets since 2008 (when they successfully launched small Falcon 1), and started earning big money with Falcon 9 that's flying since 2010. Their biggest customer is NASA, as SpaceX has done over a half of American resupply flights to the ISS (that started in 2012), flying Falcon 9 with their Dragon spacecraft - and these are big contracts, it was $1.6B for 12 flights at the start. Falcon 9 has been sending payloads for many commercial customers since 2013. Since 2020 they're the only American company able to send astronauts to space (at >$200M per flight). Boeing was supposed to be the second option that should be ready around the same time as SpaceX, and they were even awarded more money than SpaceX for development of their spacecraft, but they're not ready yet (which means even more money for SpaceX). By the time SpaceX started sending Starlinks to space frequently, they've already done 70+ launches for various customers. Compare that with Blue Origin that was founded BEFORE SpaceX (in 2000), which launched its first orbital rocket just recently, while SpaceX has launched Falcon 9 rocket 400+ times.
signatoremo 2y ago
It’s typical HN reaction to only paying attention to layoffs, but not hirings. Blue Origin grew substantially from 1000 in 2018 to 6000 in 2022, to 14,000 in 2024 [0]. Which isn’t much less than SpaceX, despite the latter handling 140 launches a year and handling thousands of Starlink satellites. Reducing the workforce only makes sense. Whether they’ve done it right is another story. [0] - https://www.geekwire.com/2025/blue-origin-to-lay-off-10-of-workforce-read-memo-from-ceo-to-employees/ https://www.geekwire.com/2025/blue-origin-to-lay-off-10-of-w...
- blitzar 2y ago
  I am saying it is poor management, nothing more nothing less. Hiring 8,000 people in two years then coming to the conclusion you "aren’t set up for the kind of success that we really wanted to have" is gross incompetence. Management isn't cleared out on the back of such a performance.
lupusreal 2y ago
Blue Origin management has been talking some crazy shit about building and launching as many as 12 launches this year and 25 rockets in 2026. That's not something they said years ago, they said this a few months ago. There's no conceivably way they manage it but they're saying it anyway, which means Bezos must be supplying them with some good cocaine.
- hindsightbias 2y ago
  They have to orbit ~1600 Kupiers by summer 2026 per their FCC license. I’m sure President Musks FCC director will be ameanable.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    Having to do it according to the terms of their license doesn't make it a realistic goal. Three or four launches by 2026 would be more in line with the traditional pace of new launchers (and this doesn't account for Blue Origin's uniquely slow pace.)
  - signatoremo 2y ago
    Get your facts right. That’s Amazon, not Blue Origin. Amazon has booked flight with various launch providers, including SpaceX to meet their license’s requirement. It’s still a very aggressive schedule with little room for error.
janderson215 2y ago
I don’t understand how so many people perceive the world this way. I work with a top tier of people but also have a couple of duds in my 85 person org. We would definitely be a better company if we got rid of 10 people. Some people are a net negative and eat up important resources who should be spending their time doing things that provide more value versus trying to help the duds. What am I missing here? Can someone please help me understand the other side aside from taking away peoples livelihood = bad and rich people want all the money for themselves
- _dark_matter_ 2y ago
  Why do those people still work there? They should be let go individually to find something more compatible. Mass layoffs are not the way to make that decision.
  - janderson215 2y ago
    Acquiring company is concerned about terminations coming back as lawsuits, so unless there is something really egregious is puts so much work on valuable people to follow the required PIP process (I’m talking a months long process) that it changes the equation again and makes it worth it for those duds to suck the time out away from our valuable people who happen to be managing them. The result is that good people end up loafing because of lowered morale.
    - blitzar 2y ago
      If you are in the US you can just fire them for no reason at any time, making employees fight to the death to not be in the bottom 10% is fun for management to squeeze a bit of extra performance out of people but not for anyone else. If you are in the rest of the world, batch firing "the bottom 10%" for the stated reason of performance (they normally lie and say it is for a different reason) still requires the exact same amount of effort as doing it when there are actual performance issues. Properly managed teams deal with actual poor performers, and your bottom 10% employee might be a top 1% employee any other company.

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.
thih9 2y ago
> corporations need to say every single thing in a positive light or else media would savagely quote them I call BS - don’t humanize corporations, they do what they can to maximize profit. Media is being helpful; without media’s work corporations would still present things in good light for them, only now without third parties involved. Consumers would not benefit from that.
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago
  What about media corporations? The vast majority of media are part of a small number of huge profit seeking corporations.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    They aren't exactly guilt free either if bewtween the horrible compensation model and a revenue incentive that decreases the quality of their wriing. But two wrongs don't make a right.
  - thih9 2y ago
    I guess one more reason not to claim that corporations are suffering from evil media’s savagery - they’re all corporations after all. Plus, having corporations keep each other in check still sounds helpful to me.
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      > Plus, having corporations keep each other in check still sounds helpful to me. For the ~4 centuries we've had stuff similar to corporations, that never worked anywhere. Corporations will always cartelize and try to protect each other.
      - thih9 2y ago
        Note that I said this sounds helpful, I never said this should be the only measure. There are laws against anticompetitive behavior. Also, about corporations always protecting each other, this looks incorrect, e.g.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_warfare https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_warfare
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>See what happens when somebody big admits openly making a mistake. They get punished. Yes, actions have consequences. It's not like these are honest, unavoidable misakes these businesses make. They ruthlessly plan around these concepts, and any failure has employees pay the most.
wesselbindt 2y ago
> media would savagely quote them I think you're confused as to which side of the employer-employee struggle the media aligns itself with. All major news outlets are owned by the owning class, whose interests align with those of Bezos and other employers. Recently, a member of the owning class did a literal actual Hitler salute on stage twice, and the closest the mass media came to calling a spade a spade was saying things like "alleged resemblance to a Roman salute".
- zmgsabst 2y ago
  https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403 https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403
  - wesselbindt 2y ago
    Real apartheid defense league moment
  - chillingeffect 2y ago
    It'a funny. I always thought of the ADL as having a hair-trigger, over-blaming. Then this happened and I can't figure out if they're just trying to survive? If they're more interested in protecting certain groups than others? Doesnt make sense.
    - eastbound 2y ago
      Maybe it was, genuinely, too much excitement when saluting the crowd. It is obvious to me and I’m really surprised so many people were talked into believing it was anything else than a mistake. If he really wanted to come out as a “Charlie Chapplin” fan, he would have repainted his brands in the associated colours.
      - 42772827 2y ago
        He did it twice and never apologized.
      - 2y ago
gnz11 2y ago
> Media and social media are evil forces. We've got to get over this "all media bad" mentality. It's counterproductive and not helping anything. Sure, there are garbage media organizations publishing to maximize profits but there are also all kinds of organizations doing stellar journalism these days too. Also, "media" is such a broad term that it's almost meaningless.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  > but there are also all kinds of organizations doing stellar journalism these days too They just don't have any viewership. It may be worth studying why and what can be done to fix this. But I bet one will get stuck with "it's because of government corruption" pretty soon and have no place to move from there.
- Kubuxu 2y ago
  Could you list few? I’ve stopped following media in general because everything I could find was profit maximisation through outrage and sensationalism. So I would really appreciate something that isn’t that.
  - janderson215 2y ago
    Foreign Affairs is an exception I’ve recently discovered that seems to go for level-headed criticism versus a more panicky take. Here’s an example article: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-a...
- jajko 2y ago
  Please stop dragging rest of humanity to your side, there is no "we" in your camp, and I agree with OP in the meaning of his/her words. Its a net loss for humanity, as is all political correctness instead of objective truth which should always be pursued. Maybe a good idea on paper, but it failed to actually change anything or anybody, fringe people just got pushed into their own siloed groups and there is no coming back, thanx to 'media'. Now with ie US elections of gradually in Europe too we saw and see how all fringe quietly became majority at the end.
adverbly 2y ago
Well said. It's the complete opposite of a growth mindset. It's a sales mindset. Our society only wants to hear from con-men, and so (big surprise here) we tend to put literal con-men in leadership positions. I'd love to hear some recommendations on how to change the incentives around this.

bloomingkales 2y ago

He already got to space. It's like releasing a triple A game, you release the staff after it's done. It's sociopathically optimal, and lauded in certain circles as a virtue.

oskarkk 2y ago

SpaceX has 13000 employees and has launched more than 100 orbital rockets into space last year (and they're also manufacturing thousands of satellites and doing other things). They were able to launch 20 rockets in a year having 5000 employees. ULA is launching couple of rockets a year with 2700 employees. Blue Origin was developing their rocket for the last 10 years and has just launched it for the first time. The whole company doesn't seem to be very efficient.

_fizz_buzz_ 2y ago
I see your point, but going from 0 rocket launches to 1 rocket launch probably takes a lot more work than going from 1 rocket launch to x number of rocket launches.
- oskarkk 2y ago
  Of course, but SpaceX was able to go to 1 orbital rocket launch with 1000 employees in less than 5 years. ULA also has a new rocket. New Glenn is bigger than Falcon 9 or Vulcan, but it certainly could have been developed and built with less people. Blue Origin is bloated because it isn't functioning like a normal company on market, that has to earn money to function, it exists because Bezos has been throwing money at it for 20 years.
  - chii 2y ago
    spacex also couldnt earn money prior to their ability to launch rockets. It's only recently that their successful launches of starlink, and various other satellites earned them any cash.
    - oskarkk 2y ago
      They're successfully launching rockets since 2008 (when they successfully launched small Falcon 1), and started earning big money with Falcon 9 that's flying since 2010. Their biggest customer is NASA, as SpaceX has done over a half of American resupply flights to the ISS (that started in 2012), flying Falcon 9 with their Dragon spacecraft - and these are big contracts, it was $1.6B for 12 flights at the start. Falcon 9 has been sending payloads for many commercial customers since 2013. Since 2020 they're the only American company able to send astronauts to space (at >$200M per flight). Boeing was supposed to be the second option that should be ready around the same time as SpaceX, and they were even awarded more money than SpaceX for development of their spacecraft, but they're not ready yet (which means even more money for SpaceX). By the time SpaceX started sending Starlinks to space frequently, they've already done 70+ launches for various customers. Compare that with Blue Origin that was founded BEFORE SpaceX (in 2000), which launched its first orbital rocket just recently, while SpaceX has launched Falcon 9 rocket 400+ times.

signatoremo 2y ago

It’s typical HN reaction to only paying attention to layoffs, but not hirings. Blue Origin grew substantially from 1000 in 2018 to 6000 in 2022, to 14,000 in 2024 [0]. Which isn’t much less than SpaceX, despite the latter handling 140 launches a year and handling thousands of Starlink satellites. Reducing the workforce only makes sense. Whether they’ve done it right is another story. [0] - https://www.geekwire.com/2025/blue-origin-to-lay-off-10-of-workforce-read-memo-from-ceo-to-employees/ https://www.geekwire.com/2025/blue-origin-to-lay-off-10-of-w...

blitzar 2y ago
I am saying it is poor management, nothing more nothing less. Hiring 8,000 people in two years then coming to the conclusion you "aren’t set up for the kind of success that we really wanted to have" is gross incompetence. Management isn't cleared out on the back of such a performance.

lupusreal 2y ago

Blue Origin management has been talking some crazy shit about building and launching as many as 12 launches this year and 25 rockets in 2026. That's not something they said years ago, they said this a few months ago. There's no conceivably way they manage it but they're saying it anyway, which means Bezos must be supplying them with some good cocaine.

hindsightbias 2y ago
They have to orbit ~1600 Kupiers by summer 2026 per their FCC license. I’m sure President Musks FCC director will be ameanable.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Having to do it according to the terms of their license doesn't make it a realistic goal. Three or four launches by 2026 would be more in line with the traditional pace of new launchers (and this doesn't account for Blue Origin's uniquely slow pace.)
- signatoremo 2y ago
  Get your facts right. That’s Amazon, not Blue Origin. Amazon has booked flight with various launch providers, including SpaceX to meet their license’s requirement. It’s still a very aggressive schedule with little room for error.

janderson215 2y ago

I don’t understand how so many people perceive the world this way. I work with a top tier of people but also have a couple of duds in my 85 person org. We would definitely be a better company if we got rid of 10 people. Some people are a net negative and eat up important resources who should be spending their time doing things that provide more value versus trying to help the duds. What am I missing here? Can someone please help me understand the other side aside from taking away peoples livelihood = bad and rich people want all the money for themselves

_dark_matter_ 2y ago
Why do those people still work there? They should be let go individually to find something more compatible. Mass layoffs are not the way to make that decision.
- janderson215 2y ago
  Acquiring company is concerned about terminations coming back as lawsuits, so unless there is something really egregious is puts so much work on valuable people to follow the required PIP process (I’m talking a months long process) that it changes the equation again and makes it worth it for those duds to suck the time out away from our valuable people who happen to be managing them. The result is that good people end up loafing because of lowered morale.
  - blitzar 2y ago
    If you are in the US you can just fire them for no reason at any time, making employees fight to the death to not be in the bottom 10% is fun for management to squeeze a bit of extra performance out of people but not for anyone else. If you are in the rest of the world, batch firing "the bottom 10%" for the stated reason of performance (they normally lie and say it is for a different reason) still requires the exact same amount of effort as doing it when there are actual performance issues. Properly managed teams deal with actual poor performers, and your bottom 10% employee might be a top 1% employee any other company.