Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, launched his private rocket company Blue Origin over twenty years ago. Lagging behind SpaceX, the serious stuff may just be getting started.
Jeff Bezos recently announced that he will step down as CEO of Amazon this summer to become its executive chairman. In a letter to employees, he underlined his intention to devote more of his time and energy to other passions, mentioning in particular one of his other companies:Blue Origin, which specializes in aerospace.
Does this mean Mr. Bezos will take on a bigger day-to-day role in his rocket company? "If Jeff chooses to spend more time at Blue Origin in the next phase of his career, that would be a very good thing “, believes Rob Meyerson, president of the company from 2003 to 2017. “He brings great intelligence, great operational expertise and great mission passion to the company “.
Mr. Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 , two years before the creation of SpaceX by Elon Musk. In its early days, the company communicated very little. Then, over the years, Blue Origin became less secretive and began to grow, offering several ambitious projects.
The coming years of the company even appear very busy. There is indeed talk of soon offering short suborbital getaways to wealthy tourists aboard a capsule:the New Shepard. The company's future New Glenn rocket will also join NASA's commercial launch vehicle fleet to operate flights as early as mid-2021 . Finally, Blue Origin is still in the running for the development of a lunar lander aimed at bringing humans back to the Moon as early as 2024, as part of the Artemis program.
Even so, while Elon Musk has already built a thriving business, primarily through his workhorse Falcon 9, Blue Origin appears to be lagging behind. The company hasn't taken anyone into space yet, and its New Glenn launch vehicle, which is set to compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9, has yet to take off once.
However, if the company lags behind SpaceX, that doesn't necessarily mean it's far behind.
During his tour with journalists in 2016, Mr. Bezos pointed out to them an image plastered on one of the walls of the company's headquarters. On this image are drawn two turtles holding an hourglass and looking towards the cosmos. And underneath was Blue Origin's motto:Gradatim ferociter which means "step by step, fiercely" in Latin.
Thus, the company intends to become the turtle of La Fontaine's famous fable where slowness and stability prevail over the speed of the hare .
There is therefore no longer any question for Bezos to spend only one day a week at Blue Origin as in 2016, leaving it to his engineers to talk to journalists about the technical aspects of its ships, which contrasted with Elon Musk, deeply involved in the engineering details at SpaceX. Blue Origin must now move from "research and development" to "seeking revenue and profit".
So perhaps now is the perfect time for Jeff Bezos, a powerful businessman who knows how to make money, to become more involved in society.
