- Blue Origin CEO David Limp explained why the rocket company was laying off around 10% of workers.
- Limp said rapid growth led to more bureaucracy; it’s now thinning management layers, among engineering cuts.
- The move shows the Jeff Bezos-owned company is joining tech’s flattening trend.
Another Jeff Bezos-founded company wants fewer middle managers.
Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, says it is laying off around 10% of its workers and thinning out management layers in the process.
“We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed,” David Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin, told employees in a Thursday email obtained by Business Insider.
“Sadly, this resulted in eliminating some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management and thinning out our layers of management,” Limp added.
The staff cuts come just weeks after Blue Origin successfully launched its first orbital rocket, New Glenn, on January 16. Blue Origin was founded by Bezos in 2000 and has been playing catch-up with its rival, Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
SpaceX developed its first orbital rocket, the Falcon 9 v1.0, in 2005. The rocket made its debut launch in 2010.
In December, Bezos told journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin at the 2024 New York Times DealBook Summit that he thinks Blue Origin “is not a very good business, yet.”
“I think it’s going to be the best business that I have ever been involved in but it’s going to take a while,” Bezos added.
The move by CEO Limp, who previously worked for more than a decade at Amazon, echoes a similar desire by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy to have fewer middle managers — part of a wider tech flattening trend.
Jassy told Amazon employees in September that he wanted to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by 15% by the end of March, which he said would “decrease bureaucracy” and improve the company’s speed.
Meta has made similar moves. In 2023, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company didn’t want a structure “that’s just managers managing managers, managing managers, managing managers, managing the people who are doing the work.”
Read Blue Origin CEO David Limp’s memo:
From: David Limp
Date: Thursday, February 13, 2025 at 7:10 AM
To:
Subject: Difficult Org News — Changes To Our Team
Folks,
We just finished this morning’s meeting, during which I gave an update on our organization. As I mentioned, we have made the tough decision to reduce our workforce by about 10%. The impact this has is not lost on any of us—we are saying goodbye to our friends and colleagues who have helped us build Blue into what it is today.
I know this is a lot to absorb, and I would like to explain how we got here. Over the last few months, as a leadership team, we have worked together to define our 2025 Annual Operating Plan and growth strategy. Our primary focus in 2025 and beyond is to scale our manufacturing output and launch cadence with speed, decisiveness, and efficiency for our customers. We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed. It also became clear that the makeup of our organization must change to ensure our roles are best aligned with executing these priorities. Sadly, this resulted in eliminating some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management and thinning out our layers of management.
While I acknowledge that these messages are better delivered personally and individually, the reach of these changes across multiple locations and teams makes that difficult. We will notify impacted employees immediately via their work and personal email addresses of their status with Blue. We will also email employees who are not impacted to confirm their employment with Blue. Both emails will arrive by 7:30 A.M. PT/10:30 A.M. ET today. While our sites are open, I encourage you to work from home for the rest of the day if your role allows you to do so.
We are doing what we can to support everyone impacted. The email notifications will provide support details, which include severance packages, COBRA coverage, career support services, and access to counseling through our Employee Assistance Program.
Let me add that I am extremely confident in the enormous opportunities in front of us and have never been more optimistic about our mission. We will continue to invest, invent, and hire hundreds of positions in areas that will help us achieve our goals and best serve our customers. We will be a stronger, faster, and more customer-focused company that consistently meets and exceeds our commitments. This year alone, we will land on the Moon, deliver a record number of incredible engines, and fly New Glenn and New Shepard on a regular cadence.
To our colleagues who are impacted today, thank you so much for your hard work and passion for our mission. I hope we all support one another with grace and empathy while upholding our leadership principles during this time.
Dave-
