Blue Origin Major Layoff

Talk about a cold shoulder.

Blue Origin announced that the company will reduce its headcount, which has grown to nearly 15,000, by laying off 10 percent of the workforce.

Why all of a sudden? The company recently conducted the long-awaited maiden launch of New Glenn. I was expecting that Blue Origin would scale up the organization to escalate its entry into the launch service market. The decision seems quite contradictory to me.

The CEO explained that it’s time for the company to embrace a more customer-focused culture. I guess he’s got a point because Blue Origin is at a pivotal point, shifting its focus from R&D to commercialization. It isn’t a secret that Blue wasn’t managed efficiently, chasing too many goals. Perhaps, it's time for Blue Origin to reprioritize.

But to me, this doesn’t seem like sustainable corporation management. If your boss’s strategy is to build a team, meet a milestone, fire them then find new people for the next goal – then I wouldn’t find myself connected with the company’s vision, knowing that being successful on your task could result in getting less appreciated, or even worse, laid off.

I will keep monitoring how the layoff goes to see which groups are mainly targeted. If they cut off predominantly the engineers and technicians, it would heavily affect my view on Blue’s future.