Former Blue Origin employee here. I didn’t leave in the recent wave of departures, but rather a much earlier one. It’s been ongoing for years, ever since Bob Smith became CEO. This is just the first time there has been a big piece about it in the media (to my knowledge).

If I had to distill the myriad reasons for the waves of departures down to one theme: disappointment. Folks who have been at Blue Origin since before Smith witnessed a huge shift in mentality, going from “we hired you all because you’re smart and we need smart people” under previous leadership to “we’re gonna do what Bob says because he’s the boss”. It’s absolutely demoralizing, even more so because Bob Smith clearly has no idea how to actually make Blue Origin competitive with the likes of SpaceX, as evidenced by everything you’ve already read in the media recently.