Blue Origin employees say they wouldn’t set foot on Jeff Bezos’ Rocket Ship because they want to live

Going into space could have been one of the Jeff Bezoschildhood dreams of, but according to current and former employees of the company that brought it there, Blue Origin is a sexist, toxic organization that cares more about beating other billionaires than about the safety of people. flights.

In a thunderous trial writing by nearly two dozen people who have worked at Blue Origin, the company is described as a terrifying environment both for women and for people who rely on the world’s second richest man to transport them to and from. space in one piece. In addition to noting that Blue Origin’s workforce of over 3,600 is “predominantly male and predominantly white” and that “100% of technical and program managers are men,” the authors write that many leaders have a “clear bias against women.”

In one case, a former NASA astronaut and senior Blue Origin employee allegedly told a group of women he was collaborating with, “You should ask my opinion because I’m a man. While men were apparently listened to when it came to concerns about the New Shepard, women were “humiliated for raising them.” As the authors write:

When a man was fired for poor performance, he was allowed to leave with dignity, even a leaving party. Yet when a female leader who had dramatically improved her department’s performance was fired, she was ordered to leave immediately, with security hovering until she left the building five minutes later.

They also highlight a former executive who “frequently treated women in a condescending and humiliating manner”, calling them “little girl”, “baby doll” or “sweetheart” and inquiring about their love lives. They say the man’s behavior was so well known within the company that some female employees “began to warn new hires to stay away from him, while he was in charge of recruiting employees. It dawned on many of us that he was protected by his close personal relationship with Bezos – he had to physically grope a subordinate for him to finally be released.

Elsewhere, there is this revolting anecdote, for The Washington Post:

One person who was not a signatory to the blog post said in an interview that he was once in a meeting with [then vice president of recruiting Walt] Mccleery and the executives of an outside company when McCleery turned to the executives and said, “I apologize for [her] be emotional. It must be her time of the month.

The comment “was hard on me,” she said. “It was embarrassing and embarrassing.” She said she had to quit her job there “because I couldn’t take it anymore”.

According to To post, Blue Origin hired law firm Perkins Coie to investigate McCleery and determined his behavior was inappropriate, which company officials have confirmed, claiming he was fired. (In an interview, McCleery denied the allegations and said, “That’s not true as far as I’m concerned. I have no further comments.” Asked about his departure from Blue Origin, he replied: “It doesn’t matter how it ended. It’s private. It’s my information.”)