Blue Origin throws in its best talent

Jeff Bezos may have felt triumphant when he rushed towards the edge of space last month, but apparently the same can’t be said for the other Blue Origin employees. On Friday, CNBC was first to report that more than a dozen engineers had left Bezos’ company in recent weeks, some leaving for high-ranking positions on rival space flight crews.

Some of the big names who left Blue Origin included Nitin Arora, the chief engineer of Blue Origin’s lunar lander program, and Lauren Lyons, who announcement earlier this month, she took on the role of chief operating officer at Firefly Aerospace. Arora, meanwhile, said in a LinkedIn post last week he had accepted a role at SpaceX. Business fox confirmed that other major exits from the company included former NASA astronaut Jeff Ashby, as well as Steve Bennet, who helped lead the New Shepard Launch Program.

Bezos’ company recently lost outside to SpaceX for a key NASA contract to develop a moon lander for the Artemis program, a decision on which Blue Origin is now suing. Earlier this year, NASA reversed its initial plans to award several companies with development contracts for the agency’s Human Landing System (HLS) program, instead of providing $ 2.9 billion in funding only at SpaceX. Ahead of last week’s trial, Bezos wrote a open letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, saying his business would cover billions in costs if they could have part of the contract.

A spokesperson for Blue Origin told CNBC that, Despite revenue, the company is growing at a rapid pace, adding 850 people to its workforce in 2020 alone and add another 650 to date This year. “We continue to fulfill major leadership roles in manufacturing, quality, engine design and vehicle design,” they said. “It’s a team that we are building and we have a lot of talent.“

Yet these high profile departures are a good reminder that the space company can be difficult to penetrate, even for billionaire founder of Amazon. We have seen so much at the end of last year when Blue Origins chef ooperate officer left the company, on the heels of various failed government contracts and a gust of development delays. Maybe if Bezos put more effort into keeping the business together and less in his cowboy cosplay, Blue Origin would be in better shape than today.