![]() Originally a computer scientist, Limp began his career at Apple in the mid-1980s and served as director of the North and South American PowerBook division. To make Blue Origin more competitive, Bezos needs to get this hire right. It became something of a parlor game in the space industry to guess when Bezos would finally get around to firing Smith. ![]() Smith, clearly, was not the leader Blue Origin needed to make the company more competitive with SpaceX in launch and other spaceflight activities. It is likely that Bezos is still providing about $2 billion a year to support the company's cash needs.Ĭrucially, as Blue Origin meandered under Smith's tenure, SpaceX soared, launching hundreds of rockets and thousands of satellites. And Blue Origin remains significantly underwater, financially. But Smith brought a traditional aerospace mindset into a company that had hitherto been guided by a new space vision, leading to a high turnover rate. With any corporate culture, there will be growing pains, of course. "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 wrote. And two years ago, a group of current and former Blue Origin employees wrote a blistering letter about the company under Smith. I asked one current employee about the hiring of Limp on Monday afternoon, and their response was, "Anything is better than Bob."Īlthough it is very far from an exact barometer, Smith has received consistently low ratings on Glassdoor for his performance as chief executive of Blue Origin. But he has been significantly late on a number of key programs, including the BE-4 rocket engine and the New Glenn rocket.Īs a space reporter, I have spoken with dozens of current and former Blue Origin employees, and virtually none of them have had anything positive to say about Smith's tenure as chief executive. The company had about 1,500 employees when Smith arrived, and the company now employs nearly 11,000 people. The Honeywell engineer was given a mandate to transform Blue Origin into a large and profitable space business. After being personally vetted and hired by Bezos, Smith took over from Rob Meyerson in 2017. To put things politely, Smith has had a rocky tenure as Blue Origin's chief executive. Limp will join Blue Origin in December and become chief executive of the company at that time. ![]() "He has extensive experience in the high-tech industry and growing highly complex organizations, including leading Amazon’s Kuiper, Kindle, Alexa, Zoox, Fire TV, and many other businesses." ![]() "Dave is a proven innovator with a customer-first mindset," the spokesperson said. Shortly after Smith's email, a Blue Origin spokesperson said the company's new chief executive will be Dave Limp, who stepped down as Amazon's vice president of devices and services last month. "We've rapidly scaled this company from its prototyping and research roots to a large, prominent space business." "It has been my privilege to be part of this great team, and I am confident that Blue Origin's greatest achievements are still ahead of us," Smith wrote in an email. Joe Raedle/Getty Images reader comments 423 withĪfter six years of running Blue Origin, Bob Smith announced in a company-wide email on Monday that he will be "stepping aside" as chief executive of the space company founded by Jeff Bezos.
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