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Space Businesses

Blue Origin Has a Toxic Culture, Former and Current Employees Say (arstechnica.com) 97

Posted by BeauHD from the not-a-good-look dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A former communications executive at Blue Origin and 20 other current and former employees have written a blistering essay about the company's culture, citing safety concerns, sexist attitudes, and a lack of commitment to the planet's future. "In our experience, Blue Origin's culture sits on a foundation that ignores the plight of our planet, turns a blind eye to sexism, is not sufficiently attuned to safety concerns, and silences those who seek to correct wrongs," the essay authors write. "That's not the world we should be creating here on Earth, and certainly not as our springboard to a better one." Published Thursday on the Lioness website, the essay is signed publicly by only Alexandra Abrams, who led employee communications for the company until she was terminated in 2019. The other signatories, a majority of whom were engineers, declined to publicly disclose their names because they did not want to jeopardize employment at Blue Origin or harm their prospects in the aerospace industry for other jobs.

At times, the essay is shocking in its candor. Many of the essay's authors said they would not feel safe flying on a Blue Origin vehicle. And the anecdotes of sexism and an unhealthy work culture are vivid. "Former and current employees have had experiences they could only describe as dehumanizing, and are terrified of the potential consequences for speaking out against the wealthiest man on the planet," the authors write. "Others have experienced periods of suicidal thoughts after having their passion for space manipulated in such a toxic environment. One senior program leader with decades in the aerospace and defense industry said working at Blue Origin was the worst experience of her life."

After publication of the essay, Ars spoke with several current and former employees who have provided reliable information in the past about the company. Although it is clear the essay was a product of disgruntled workers, these sources agreed that there were elements of truth in the essay. For these sources, the withering criticism of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, and his hand-picked chief executive, Bob Smith, rang especially true. The essay authors write, "Professional dissent at Blue Origin is actively stifled. Smith personally told one of us to not make it easy for employees to ask questions at company town halls -- one of the only available forums for live, open discussion." These town halls are typically moderated so that employees cannot directly ask questions of Smith. In one infamous exchange, there were apparently so few substantive questions Smith was willing to answer that the moderator resorted to asking Smith what his favorite ice cream was. "Sorbet," Smith answered. Another example of unwelcome management tactics cited in the essay was Bezos' decision, after the Supreme Court ruling in the Epic Systems arbitration case, to force employees to sign away their right to resolve employment disputes in court. Sources confirmed to Ars that they were indeed faced with the choice of signing such an onerous contract or realizing they would eventually have to leave Blue Origin. It seemed grossly unfair. In response, Blue Origin said in a statement: "Ms. Abrams was dismissed for cause two years ago after repeated warnings for issues involving federal export control regulations. Blue Origin has no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind. We provide numerous avenues for employees, including a 24/7 anonymous hotline, and will promptly investigate any new claims of misconduct."

Abrams disputes those claims, saying that she never received any warnings, verbal or written, from management issues involving federal export control regulations.
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Blue Origin Has a Toxic Culture, Former and Current Employees Say More

Blue Origin Has a Toxic Culture, Former and Current Employees Say

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  • Who's surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Reeses ( 5069 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @04:33PM (#61849217)

    Given what we've heard about Amazon's working conditions, who can honestly raise their hands and say they're surprised at this?

    • Given what we've heard about Amazon's working conditions, who can honestly raise their hands and say they're surprised at this?

      A little. Amazon has two groups of employees. The highly educated tech folks and the blue collar warehouse folks, the bad working conditions I've heard about were always imposed on the blue collar folks. I've always assumed the technies had a fairly decent working environment.

      Blue Origin should be mostly tech folks, as such, I'd have expected them to have good working conditions.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Blue Origin should be mostly tech folks, as such, I'd have expected them to have good working conditions.

        The only difference between blue collar folks and blue origin folks is that when you take a dump, the bottle sucks the excrement out of you.

      • Re: Who's surprised? (Score:5, Informative)

        by BytePusher ( 209961 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @04:57PM (#61849321) Homepage
        While the white collar workers at Amazon are treated a little better, it's still a cultish and toxic workplace. Sycophants thrive at Amazon and everyone else gets burned or burns out.
      • My impression of Amazon's culture for white collar technical workers has always been that it's one of those burn-you-up-and-spit-you-out sort of places. I'm not sure where I got that impression from, but it's the reason I gave the Amazon recruiter who contacted me for not being interested in talking to them. Maybe it was this article [nytimes.com]:

        They are told to forget the “poor habits” they learned at previous jobs, one employee recalled. When they “hit the wall” from the unrelenting pace, th

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Have you ever seen an Amazon technical interview question? You can tell just from the way they hire people that it's a toxic place, looking for young and naive graduates to exploit for a few years and then cull.

    • Re:Who's surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @05:06PM (#61849339)
      Expand that beyond Amazon, to most of the TechBro environment.

  • Sexism (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @04:35PM (#61849227)
    Cue all the nerds defending Amazon because of the accusation of sexism, which to them is always false and always discredits every other claim about culture, safety and workmanship.

    • Naw. It's possible to call out bullshit without shilling for the target of said bullshit.

      A pox on both their houses and all that.

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by sabri ( 584428 )

        It's possible to call out bullshit without shilling for the target of said bullshit.

        Except, Ars cannot. From TFA:

        Blue Origin issued a statement that denigrated Abrams

        Apparently,

        "Ms. Abrams was dismissed for cause two years ago after repeated warnings for issues involving federal export control regulations," the company said.

        is now denigrating.

        Fuck Ars Technica, and Fuck (with a capital F) woke Eric Berger.

        • Abrams disputes those claims, saying that she never received any warnings, verbal or written, from management issues involving federal export control regulations.

          Amazon wouldn't lie about something like that, would they?

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by sabri ( 584428 )

            Amazon wouldn't lie about something like that, would they?

            I'm sure that if Amazon would lie about that, every attorney within 50 miles of complainant would be drooling to file that defamation suit.

          • Maybe they would. But then, so might she. Absent evidence or absent evidence of absence, this is just trash talk from both sides that doesn't change the substance: a former employee is talking trash about her old employer and deliberately checking every box of sjw bingo.

            • Re: Sexism (Score:4)

              by youngone ( 975102 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @08:34PM (#61849743)
              Breaking federal export control regulations tends to involve criminal charges, but she's never been charged?
              Yeah, I'm sure the problem is the engineer.
            • Despite the fantasy of incels, people/organizations with greater power are much more likely abuse their power to try to discredit a complainant. But trust a rightwing nutjob to never understand power dynamics.

              • More likely than what? Big organizations tend to fling shit more than small organizations, but individual liars and grifters exist too. You have zero evidence to back that claim that she's "unlikely" or "unlikelier" to lie. She's pushing all the sympathy buttons to appeal to the sjw crowd and she's making irrelevant claims that an aerospace company is insufficiently woke along some particular dimension she happens to care about. So what? Their job is to build rockets, not save the world.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          Apparently.

          "Ms. Abrams was dismissed for cause two years ago after repeated warnings for issues involving federal export control regulations," the company said.

          is now denigrating.

          You think that's praising her? It's literally the definition [merriam-webster.com] of denigrate:

          transitive verb 1 : to attack the reputation of : defame / / "denigrate one's opponents"

    • And the Amazon fans who feel Amazon is the savior of the universe. Except that they're all so busy right now trying out New World that there's no time for them to come to Slashdot and cry "leave Amazon alone!"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      because of the accusation of sexism, which to them is always false

      Nope. I even browsed at level-0, and you are the only one who mentioned such an idea. Are you disappointed that slashdot has not lived up to your prejudices?

      • Give it time.
      • I mean, there's even a reply to my comment that is exactly that.

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by Orgasmatron ( 8103 )

        It turns out that the story is mixed.

        I was rolling my eyes when I got to "mostly male and overwhelmingly white". I gotta be honest - I give zero fucks about the racial and sexual statistics of a company. I'll grumble a little when I see people who pretend to be anti-racist cheering about a minority owned company or about a company openly and blatantly discriminating against white people, and ditto when self-proclaimed anti-sexists cheer blatant sexism. But I fundamentally don't care beyond wanting consis

    • Is any good job sexist? - disease or symptom? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Friday October 01, 2021 @10:08AM (#61850869)
      Sexism and racism allegedly doesn't affect me. As a male who passes for white and has a white name, I am allegedly privileged. However, if your job treats women or minorities like shit, it's probably a shitty job. Just because it's more toxic to people not like you, doesn't mean the toxicity won't impact you. In my experience, people and work cultures are toxic or not. I've never met a bigot who was pleasant company. I've met many bigots...racists, homophobes, overt-sexists...not sexist according to Andrea Dworkin, who thinks all non-lesbians are anti-Feminist, but the type of "bitch should open her mouth only to suck my cock or tell me dinner is ready"-level sexist cavemen. If they hate one group, eventually, they'll find a reason to be a raging dick to you.

      If you hate Barak Obama because with much much more extreme vitriol than Bill Clinton, but without a specific and compelling reason (and probably more likely because you feared your daughter found him charming), you're toxic. If you think women can't do the same work as men in an office, you're toxic. I've never in my life met a bigot who was an awesome person to me. Even if I'm not one of the groups you hate, I know that sooner or later, you'll turn that same hatred on me.

      When I was much younger, I had a boss, really fucking hated Indians, would get drunk and rant about them when we were out of the office. Expressed how glad he was that I took the job so he wouldn't have to hire one. We had a good first 3 months. I did great work. After the honeymoon, no matter how good of work I did, I'd get the abusive side and same vitriol. Why? No clear reason. I kept my mouth shut about politics or any personal stuff, I did my job better than anyone else on the team, I was positive, enthusiastic, reliable, always on time for every meeting, friendly, etc. I am always happy to earn a paycheck and they paid well. He'd get violently upset for no clear reason to me or anyone else on the team. I got it much less because I was his favorite, but it was constantly tense and miserable.

      In my experience, all bigots are like him. The bigotry is a symptom, not the disease. It's a symptom of deep unhappiness or mental illness. I've never met someone who could be toxic to one group of people and positive and affirming to another. I worked in a workplace that tolerated racism once, far in the suburbs. I was shocked both that a worker would shout "wetback" to a Latino coworker (who resented being called that) openly in the office for all to hear and even more shocked no one got angry. They treated it like an audible fart, a faux pas they didn't like, but just held their nose and tolerated. There were numerous other instances of people openly saying homophobic or racist comments in meetings, official e-mails, group chats, etc. Their culture just tolerated it. Needless to say, the place was a shit place to work and I feel stupid for taking the job. Those toxic people were abusive to anyone who they felt like abusing. I tried tolerating it because the pay was good and they let me work remotely, but I eventually looked for and found a much better job, where I am much much happier. In my experience, all toxic people will abuse you eventually.

      Is Blue Origin sexist? I don't know. I never worked there. If enough people are ranting about it, it's probably at least toxic. If it's toxic, I don't really want to work there. I'll pick a less-sexist environment if given a choice. Whatever is fueling toxicity towards women or minorities or whatever will eventually be turned on me. While I have a choice of places to work, I will generally avoid any place that is as this woman described.

  • Any time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aerogems ( 339274 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @04:36PM (#61849229)

    Any time the official response to these sorts of allegations includes an ad hominem or personal attack against the person making the allegations, I just automatically assume they're true, or largely true. If they had just stuck with the standard "We do not agree with these accusations... blah blah blah... multiple ways to report issues... blah blah blah" and left out the bit about the person being fired, I would have just assumed the usual sociopathic HR drones who will look at any complaint and calculate the odds of being able to get away with just retaliating against the complainant and covering the whole issue up vs taking any kind of meaningful action. But they didn't, so now I basically assume pretty much everything said is true and that Blue Origin confused "scumbag legal firm" with "PR firm specializing in image rehabilitation."

    • Re: Any time (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NagrothAgain ( 4130865 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @05:19PM (#61849375)
      To be fair, if a person is using an "appeal to authority" based argument with their former position as the basis, then the circumstances of them leaving is directlyrelevant. There's a good chance the claims are true but also a good chance this person is "rabble rousing."

      • While I suppose that can be true in some cases, why should anyone pay attention to a person who isn't an authority on the subject? For example, if I, as someone who has never worked at Blue Origin, doesn't even know anyone who has worked for Blue Origin in any capacity, start talking about how the male managers are all budding rapists, no one has any idea what they're doing, and Bezos made everyone sign away the rights to their first born, there's absolutely no reason anyone should take me seriously. Howeve

    • I'm guessing you've never hired and had to deal with an over privileged employee.

      • Re: Any time (Score:3, Interesting)

        by RightSaidFred99 ( 874576 )
        Jesus, I can't imagine being a big employer these days and dealing with these entitled little shits. I'm only 47 but there is a very clear line between people over 40 and under 40 in terms of being giant, entitled pains in the ass.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Baleet ( 4705757 )
      Doesn't look like an ad hominem attack at all, to me. It looks like they were characterizing their accuser as a disgruntled employee. Not uncommon, nor does it necessarily discredit Amazon.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 )

      Any time the official response to these sorts of allegations includes an ad hominem or personal attack against the person making the allegations, I just automatically assume they're true, or largely true. If they had just stuck with the standard "We do not agree with these accusations... blah blah blah... multiple ways to report issues... blah blah blah" and left out the bit about the person being fired, I would have just assumed the usual sociopathic HR drones who will look at any complaint and calculate the odds of being able to get away with just retaliating against the complainant and covering the whole issue up vs taking any kind of meaningful action. But they didn't, so now I basically assume pretty much everything said is true and that Blue Origin confused "scumbag legal firm" with "PR firm specializing in image rehabilitation."

      Funny, anytime I hear smear allegations about a "toxic" workplace, I automatically assume they are full of crap unless they meet a very high bar of proof.

      "Toxic" is a meaningless, un-disprovable charge.

  • Unsurprising. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @04:36PM (#61849231)

    Seems pretty obvious when the "rocket" they launched was by far the most phallic rockets ever designed. I mean, they may have well just named it "AstroPeen". ;)

  • Shock horror (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @04:39PM (#61849239)
    It's almost as though they're working for a asshole who doesn't give a fuck what his workers think and has turned their company culture into one of micromanagement, backstabbing, and paranoia.

  • Personally.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 )

    I can't comment on the merits of this article at all but...I'm wondering who Bezos crossed that he's rather suddenly the shit-target for a host of media channels and buzz.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      wondering who Bezos crossed that he's rather suddenly the shit-target

      Bezos is the richest man on the planet (possibly second, depending on the stock market at any given moment).

      Biden wants to spend $3.5T of other people's money, and he wants to claim people making less than $400K/yr won't be charged a dime.

      Bezos is one of the biggest money pinatas hanging. FJB.

  • Should anyone be surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @04:58PM (#61849323)

    Look at how Bezos got his wealth: subjugating workers to the point where Amazon executives are afraid of running out of people to work at their warehouses [businessinsider.com].

    Last year (and probably stil), Amazon refused to record [latimes.com] how many cases of covid it had at its warehouses, how many people died from covid, and even had people walk off the job [go.com] because of the conditions during the initial stages of the pandemic.

    Why would anyone think conditions at Blue Origin would be any different when it comes to treating workers?

    • "Why would anyone think conditions at Blue Origin would be any different when it comes to treating workers?"

      Sigh. That's not the way to get the task accomplished. Bezos was one of those who were caught up in Dr. O'Neill's space colony dream (like I was). However, unhappy people are not going to be working toward this dream effectively.

  • Sorry, the term has been abused so much, it can mean anything from a very valid "grabbing people by their genitals and have them put up with it unless they want to sleep under a bridge" ... all the way to ... "I'm not allowed to bully people by narcissistically assuming it's all about me and by projecting my insecurity and self-hatred onto them so I interpret all their actions with the prejudice that they just want to discriminate me, and use that to destroy their lives! WAAA HHH !!! *whips blue hair*".

    Eve

  • ... and a lack of commitment to the planet's future.

    Well... Currently, Blue Origin's business model is simply joy rides into near orbit, but I've read they have loftier (ha! get it?) long-term goals.

    Former and current employees ... are terrified of the potential consequences for speaking out against the wealthiest man on the planet,"

    Well... As of Monday 2021/09/27 this is Elon Musk w/$199.8B, Bezos is currently #2 w/$191.5B
    Source: The Real-Time Billionaires List [forbes.com]

  • most org's are screwed up because humans run them and humans are illogical, horny, and emotional. That's life. Next!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      oh, and egotistical. That's a big one.

    • In my career, I've found that the culture of companies can vary widely, and a lot of it comes down from the top. Companies run by decent people at the top won't be perfect, but they'll generally be livable. You can always get unlucky with a nasty manager who creates a bubble of shit in their corner of the company, but they tend to be the exception. Companies run by sociopaths, on the other hand, tend to have the opposite pattern: Unless you're lucky to be in the shelter of an exceptional manager, you'll

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by cwatts ( 622605 )

        >> At one extreme is VFX, where only sociopathic company owners seem to survive.

        Curious just who you have in mind with that. I can certainly think of a few who qualify.... though at least one of then is dead...

  • What Blue Origin needs is an equivalent to AmaZen booths [youtube.com]. Maybe they could call them "Blue Boxes". 'Cause, you know, when you're Blue nothing cheers you up like popping into a glorified phone booth for some propaganda-based attitude adjustment.

  • Alien imposter! (Score:4)

    by PseudoThink ( 576121 ) on Thursday September 30, 2021 @11:17PM (#61849993)
    I've seen enough Key & Peele [youtube.com] to know that a man who uses the name "Bob Smith" and claims that "sorbet" is his favorite ice cream is clearly an alien wearing human skin and must be immediately eliminated.

  • One of the most disappointing thing about all the tech wealth is that for all the genuine innovations and making things happen, they are downright regressive when it comes to labor. And way too few are willing to stand up and organize to address these inequities because "learn to code, bro, I'll never grow up. I mean, old."

    They can completely change commerce and shopping, kill the combustion engine, change the nature of productivity but make it possible to have a 32 hour work week with livable wages? Nope.

  • Whatever the culture, it is not working (Score:3)

    by etudiant ( 45264 ) on Friday October 01, 2021 @07:21AM (#61850475)

    I'm puzzled by the claims of 'breakneck pace of work'.
    The various Blue Origin programs are all late, notably their BE-4 engine which they sold to ULA is now holding up the Vulcan vehicle the USAF is counting on for launching its future satellites.
    But perhaps the shop is just so disfunctional that is is a struggle just to move forward. and any motion seems too fast.

  • A billionaire vanity project is a dumpster fire? How shocking.

  • As much as I dislike Blue Origin, most of these kinds of complaints are boilerplate nonsense these days. In any group of more than two you can probably find some off hand remark or misbehavior that can be pointed out, in a group of 3,600 plus you're virtually guaranteed it. Most of their complaints seem to be one sentence statements with no background, context or explanation. The essay brings up two cases, one of a man (poor performance) and one of a woman (undisclosed) being fired and getting "treated d

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