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Alexandra Abrams, who spent two and a half years working in Blue Origin’s communications team, was once so convinced that she would spend her life working for Jeff Bezos’ space company that she considered tattooing her feather logo on its body.
But now she’s a whistleblower, exposing what she and others say is a toxic culture inside Blue Origin. On September 30, she published a review essay co-authored by 20 other anonymous current and former Blue Origin employees. The writers allege a workplace that tolerated sexism among a top executive clique close to Bezos and cut corners in a race to meet deadlines and beat rival space contractors in space, demoralizing workers and threatening the security of their project.
Blue Origin offered a general statement in response but did not deny any of the specific allegations contained in the letter. “Blue Origin has no tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind,” the statement said. “We provide many opportunities for employees, including an anonymous 24/7 hotline, and will promptly investigate any new malpractice complaints.
While Bezos’ much-publicized flight in July – and indeed every flight of the New Shepard in recent years – was an apparent success, the company’s next rocket, the New Glenn, and the rocket engines that will power it have suffered serious delays. The allegations presented by Abrams and his colleagues provide an explanation for Blue’s unpredictable schedule.
“The New Shepard team went through a methodical and careful process to certify our vehicle for First Human Flight. Anyone who claims otherwise is misinformed and just plain incorrect, ”Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith wrote in a company-wide email discussing the allegations. “As always, I welcome and encourage any member of Team Blue to speak to me directly if they have any concerns on any topic at any time.”
What worries Blue Origin whistleblowers
Abrams told Quartz a different story, recalling a meeting in 2019 with Smith and other senior executives about a campaign to build employee enthusiasm for a Super Bowl commercial, which was subsequently taken off the air due to its connection to Bezos’ divorce. She told Smith that company morale was low. Smith, she said, did not acknowledge the news and changed the subject, her behavior she said became a model. Blue declined to answer specific questions about Abrams’ claims.
“When the first human flight came out, I saw Blue Origin say security was their main mission,” Abrams says now. “From what I know, it was not.” She says that while the company’s engineers have worked hard to deliver the best products, they have been tasked by top management to do too much, too quickly, with too few people to achieve their goals.
Some former employees who share Abrams’ critical assessment of Blue’s culture say they still trust the New Shepard. But Quartz has also read several memos written by departing employees and spoken to other Blue Origin employees, who share concerns that resources are too limited to deliver a reliable product. “In this environment, safety is not an option, although we repeatedly state that it is our top priority,” wrote one departing engineer.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates commercial spaceflight, said it will investigate safety concerns with the company, which is currently planning a second flight with passengers, including two tech entrepreneurs, on October 12. . William Shatner, who portrayed Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek TV series, is rumored to join them.
But as Abrams notes, when it comes to space tourism, the FAA has jurisdiction only over public safety, ensuring that wayward rockets don’t threaten nearby towns or air traffic. Passenger safety is explicitly prohibited due to a law designed to encourage the nascent space tourism industry by cutting red tape.
“The feeling I got from the coverage of the Branson and Bezos flights is that the public goodwill for NASA is transferred to these flights,” Abrams said. “They’re used to NASA space launches and there’s a ton of transparency. They may not understand that these companies are not the same.
How Abrams lost faith in Bezos
At Blue Origin, Abrams’ last role was that of responsible for employee communications, a job that involved conveying company policies to the workforce and providing feedback to senior executives. This position gave him a better understanding of the whole company, with opportunities to speak with executives and employees in many departments.
Blue Origin says Abrams was fired “after repeated warnings over issues involving federal export control regulations.” She believes the company is referring to an effort to develop an in-house application that inadvertently left company information on foreign servers, an issue it helped report and resolve.
Breaking government rules on space technology may be a dismissal offense, but Abrams has denied receiving any such warnings, written or verbal. Instead, she says she was fired after a disagreement over changing employee contracts to force disputes, including over sexual harassment, to binding arbitration. Such a policy prevents employees from holding the courts to account and instead shifts the place to a private process where workers are severely disadvantaged compared to their employers.
The practice became a hot topic after Google rolled back a similar policy to settle a shareholder lawsuit over allegations of sexual harassment by several senior executives. When Blue Origin offered to add binding arbitration to its agreements with its employees, Abrams backed down, warning of a backlash. In the end, she was successful in convincing the leaders to exclude sexual harassment from the arbitration policy. But the episode, she says, cost her the trust of Smith and other top executives. It also cost her trust in Blue Origin, after the company’s general counsel, she says, told her the arbitration clause was important to Bezos.
“The fact that I know Jeff Bezos did this personally shattered any hope I had that Jeff would be the solution,” Abrams says now.
The new contract wording included an onerous no-denigration clause in which employees agree to pay Blue Origin’s legal fees if the company takes legal action to enforce the clause. Abrams signed the updated employee agreement before she was fired. She’s bracing for the possibility of Blue Origin taking legal action that could bankrupt her.
“I felt like an accomplice as an employee communications manager,” says Abrams, who never had that Blue Origin tattoo. Now, however, she said, “I feel like I am fulfilling my job description for the first time thanks to this effort …”
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