[HN Gopher] Revealed: The secret notes of Blue Origin leaders tr...
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       Revealed: The secret notes of Blue Origin leaders trying to catch
       SpaceX
        
       Author : _Microft
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2021-10-04 19:15 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
        
       | belval wrote:
       | Reading this, it's really ironic that the first leadership
       | principle of Amazon is customer obsession and after 20 years Blue
       | Origin's leadership is just tapping their forehead saying "maybe
       | we should make a rocket that customers actually want?!".
       | 
       | This demonstrate such a staggering lack of leadership it's
       | obvious that they've been relying on cash infusion from Jeff
       | Bezos for far too long.
        
         | bell-cot wrote:
         | If, after 2 decades with deep-pocketed backing, the only rocket
         | that you've actually managed to _make_ is a glorified tourist
         | toy...then maybe customer wishes don 't really matter so much.
         | You need to admit that it's a vanity hobby. Or to stop wasting
         | your money, and go back to running warehouses.
        
       | loudmax wrote:
       | The cost savings from SpaceX's reusable rockets are absolutely
       | revolutionary. If SpaceX manages to get their Starship rocket to
       | follow the path laid by their Falcon rocket, they'll be even
       | further ahead of the competition. So good on Blue Origin for
       | having performed this kind of internal review. I really hope they
       | pull into the same league as SpaceX.
       | 
       | Having said that, I do hope Blue Origin does this by emulating
       | SpaceX's _positive_ characteristics: the focus on customer
       | demand, cost constraints, iterative design, etc. Not SpaceX 's
       | _negative_ characteristics of pushing employees to work 60+ hour
       | weeks for months on end, periodically culling 10% of their
       | employees, etc. I worry that Musk is running his companies as
       | cults of personality that won 't survive his departure.
       | 
       | Based on Blue Origin's accomplishments, I'm not holding my breath
       | for for them to catch up any time soon. Fortunately there are
       | several other companies using innovative techniques to get into
       | the market so even if Blue Origin goes bust, SpaceX won't be
       | alone.
        
         | hagbard_c wrote:
         | Even more than that I hope Blue Origin tries to get even with
         | SpaceX by ways of engineering prowess instead of lawfare. Thus
         | far they seem to be more willing to take to the latter than the
         | former. While "no bucks, no Buck Rogers"[1] may be true I've
         | seen more Buck Rogers for far fewer bucks coming from SpaceX
         | than what I've seen from Blue Origin. They have been stuck at
         | the X-prize level for years now, with not much proof of any
         | capability to go beyond that.
         | 
         | [1]
         | https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/no+bucks%2C+no+Buck+Rog...
        
       | trenning wrote:
       | They're suggesting employees should work 80hrs a week instead of
       | 40 and they should fire the bottom 5-10%. The only note on
       | compensation is maybe give them more stock options.
       | 
       | Sounds like a lovely place to work.
        
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       (page generated 2021-10-04 23:02 UTC)