Speaker 1: I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon
Speaker 1: customer because you guys paid progress. You guys paid probs.
Speaker 1: This is Megacore, an investigative podcast exposing some of the
Speaker 1: world's most unethical corporations. This series is about Amazon. I'm
Speaker 1: Jake Hanrahan, journalists and documentary filmmaker. Megacorp is produced by
Speaker 1: H eleven for Cool Zone Media. Today we're going to
Speaker 1: be looking into Jeff Bezos is Blue Origin. Now this
Speaker 1: is going to sound a bit weird, but when I
Speaker 1: think of the Blue Origin project, I'm always reminded of
Speaker 1: this scene from the video game Command and Conquer Red Alert,
Speaker 1: I'm escaping to the one place that hasn't been did
Speaker 1: by capitalism. Space. Not even Command and Conquer, a war
Speaker 1: game set in an alternate reality, could predict that megacorporations
Speaker 1: would start to commercialize space. But here we are two
Speaker 1: and Bezos, the richest man on Earth, is sending other
Speaker 1: rich people into space. Will sort of into space. Blue
Speaker 1: Origin doesn't actually quite get there, but we'll go into
Speaker 1: that later in the episode. Now, if you don't know
Speaker 1: what Blue Origin is, let's start at the beginning. Preparing
Speaker 1: for a rocket towered mile per hour excursion to the
Speaker 1: edge of space. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will take his
Speaker 1: astral journey on the New Shepherd, a reusable rocket developed
Speaker 1: by his company Blue Origet start to one, New Shepherd
Speaker 1: was designed to shuttle up to six paying customers more
Speaker 1: than sixty two miles above the worth surfaced for a
Speaker 1: few moments of waitlessness and panoramic views burning the fires
Speaker 1: their astronaut wings. So Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos is
Speaker 1: private space flight company, Bezos, of course being the founder
Speaker 1: of Amazon. Despite only really getting media attention in the
Speaker 1: last year or so due to its several rocket launches,
Speaker 1: Blue Origin was actually incorporated on the eighth of September
Speaker 1: in the year two thousand. Bezos clearly had this idea
Speaker 1: in his head for a long time before he made
Speaker 1: it a reality. Blue Origin has several different facets to it,
Speaker 1: but the main aim of the company is to make
Speaker 1: it easier and cheaper for people to visit space, not
Speaker 1: just astronauts or scientists or NASA, anybody who can afford it.
Speaker 1: On their website, Blue Origins say they are quote committed
Speaker 1: to building a road to space so our children can
Speaker 1: build the future. End quote. It sounds a bit ominous
Speaker 1: to me. To be honest, it's weird considering we're talking
Speaker 1: about potentially colonizing space here. I'd say there's plenty to
Speaker 1: be fixed on Earth before we think about that. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so Blue Origin goes on to say, quote Blue Origin
Speaker 1: was founded by Jeff Bezos with the vision of enabling
Speaker 1: a future where millions of people are living and working
Speaker 1: in space for the benefit of Earth. In order to
Speaker 1: preserve Earth, Blue Origin believes that humanity will need to
Speaker 1: expand explore, find new energy and material resources, and move
Speaker 1: industries that stress Earth into space. Blue is working on
Speaker 1: this today by developing partially and fully reusable launch vehicles
Speaker 1: that are safe, low cost, and serve the needs of
Speaker 1: all civil, commercial, and defense customers. Blue Origin has been
Speaker 1: flight testing the new Shepherd rocket and it's redundant safety
Speaker 1: systems since The program has had eighteen successful consecutive missions,
Speaker 1: including three successful escape tests, showing the crew escape system
Speaker 1: can activate safely in any phase of flight. End quote.
Speaker 1: Now this might not be relevant, but as a side
Speaker 1: note here, as I was researching all of this, it
Speaker 1: struck me that the Blue Origin website feels quite amateur
Speaker 1: considering the gravity of what they're doing. For example, it's
Speaker 1: quite badly written with extremely long sentences. Their copyright is
Speaker 1: out of day on the foot of the page. Some
Speaker 1: of the photos used are out of focus or people
Speaker 1: are called mid blink, and the logo isn't even at
Speaker 1: the top of the site. I don't know, I'm an
Speaker 1: absolute knock case for stuff like that, but I couldn't
Speaker 1: go into space with them off the back of their
Speaker 1: website anyway. That's Blue Origin. You might remember when Bezos
Speaker 1: first went into sort of space on one of the
Speaker 1: New Shepherd rockets on the the eight of July. After
Speaker 1: landing back on the ground, he came out with this
Speaker 1: now infamous speech, I want to thank every Amazon employee
Speaker 1: and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all
Speaker 1: this so seriously, for every Amazon customer out there and
Speaker 1: every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my
Speaker 1: heart very much. It's very appreciated. At the time, when
Speaker 1: Bezos came out with this at the press conference, surrounded
Speaker 1: by other rich people who had just gone to sub
Speaker 1: orbital space with him, Amazon was in the news for
Speaker 1: surprise mistreatment of workers and union busting. As you can
Speaker 1: imagine Bezos turning around and saying thanks for your custom
Speaker 1: it's allowed me to fly off into space was not
Speaker 1: really well received by the Amazon workers and anyone that
Speaker 1: has an issue with Amazon workers being mistreated. Anyway. Blue
Speaker 1: Origin stresses that to keep costs down, their rockets are
Speaker 1: all about reusability, they say quote. Both New Shepherd and
Speaker 1: New Glen, one of their other shuttles, have been designed
Speaker 1: with reusability in mind from the beginning. Their vertical takeoff
Speaker 1: vertical landing architecture enables us to reuse the first stage
Speaker 1: of our launch vehicles twenty five times with minimal refurbishment,
Speaker 1: resulting in twenty five times less waste because we don't
Speaker 1: throw the hardware away. Both vehicles have throttle herble liquid
Speaker 1: fueled engines, allowing for precision landing back on the landing platform.
Speaker 1: This allows for higher asset utilization for all our vehicles,
Speaker 1: which decreases the costs and increases availability for all our customers.
Speaker 1: End quote. Doesn't seem that the person who wrote that
Speaker 1: has ever heard of punctuation um and again on a side, No,
Speaker 1: that wasn't quite verbatim, as I had to correct spelling
Speaker 1: mistakes and glaringly obvious syntax typos from a Blue Origins
Speaker 1: official website. But anyway, so, as I just said, Bezos
Speaker 1: is Blue Origin is saying twenty five times less hardware waste.
Speaker 1: But what about the environmental impact. According to the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two World Inequality Report, one space flight emits more
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide the most of the world's population creates in
Speaker 1: their entire lifetime. To me, knowing that, it seems a
Speaker 1: bit ironic for Blue Origin to be talking about paving
Speaker 1: the way to a brighter future for our kids when
Speaker 1: they're very emmo of regular commercial space flights will destroy
Speaker 1: the Earth's environment quicker. Now. It's not about do you
Speaker 1: believe in climate change or anything like that. This is
Speaker 1: just a fact of what is happening now. Whilst Blue
Speaker 1: Origin says it wants to make commercial space travel cheap,
Speaker 1: they don't mean the same kind of cheap as the
Speaker 1: way most people understand it cheap to me, for example,
Speaker 1: is say thirty pence for a point of milk. My
Speaker 1: point is the people who will be taking these space
Speaker 1: flights will almost definitely already be very rich for them.
Speaker 1: Sure it might be cheap, but for your average man
Speaker 1: and woman on the street, Blue Origins space trips will
Speaker 1: be completely and utterly unobtainable forever. So in theory, whilst
Speaker 1: these rich people are flying around like the Jetsons claiming
Speaker 1: to be advancing society for us every day man and
Speaker 1: woman are getting blasted in the long run with unprecedented
Speaker 1: levels of carbon dioxide build up in the atmosphere. Now,
Speaker 1: why does carbon dioxide matter, Well, if there's too much
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide, the Earth gets too hot. If the Earth
Speaker 1: gets too hot, we're all fucked. Basically, the oceans will
Speaker 1: go top sick, food will become scarce, crops won't grow,
Speaker 1: and brutal climate wars will undoubtedly erupt. Carbon dioxide levels
Speaker 1: have been steadily rising on Earth for the past one
Speaker 1: years now, hitting levels that scientists say have been unprecedented
Speaker 1: for hundreds of thousands of years. So we already reckon
Speaker 1: the shop due to excessive pollution where the carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: level has come from. Now, the rich commercial space people
Speaker 1: want to save us by dumping out a load more
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide via space shuttles, will never be able to
Speaker 1: afford to riding. Doesn't sound like a great deal to me.
Speaker 1: Here's something from the World Inequality Report that I just
Speaker 1: mentioned that really sums up all of this. In a
Speaker 1: more technical manner. Quote. Perhaps the most conspicuous illustration of
Speaker 1: extreme pollution associated with wealth inequality in recent years is
Speaker 1: the development of space travel and eleven minutes flight emitst
Speaker 1: no fewer than seventy five tons of carbon per passenger.
Speaker 1: About one billion individuals emits less than one ton per
Speaker 1: person per year over their lifetime. This group of one
Speaker 1: billion individuals does not omit more than seventy five tons
Speaker 1: of carbon per person. Ends quote. Now, they didn't say
Speaker 1: which commercial space company they're referring to here, but bear
Speaker 1: in mind that Bezos is Blue origin flight in July
Speaker 1: was about eleven minutes long, and this article mentions and
Speaker 1: eleven minutes space flight. Well, this isn't just speculation either.
Speaker 1: In the U S government themselves released the report acknowledging
Speaker 1: that climate change will hit low income community tease the hardest.
Speaker 1: The report, known as the fourth National Climate Assessment, was
Speaker 1: created by a team of more than three hundred experts
Speaker 1: from the US government and the private sector. Their aim
Speaker 1: was to analyze the impact of climate change on America.
Speaker 1: As reported by journalist Carmen Chappelle, the government reports states
Speaker 1: that low income populations quotes typically have less access to information, resources, institutions,
Speaker 1: and other factors to prepare for and avoid the health
Speaker 1: risks of climate change. People with a lower income usually
Speaker 1: live in neighborhoods with the greatest exposure to climate and
Speaker 1: extreme whether events end quote so again, the people who
Speaker 1: will be hit the hardest should the world eventually crumble
Speaker 1: under the weight of too much carbon monoxide will be
Speaker 1: those with less money, likely the sort of people who
Speaker 1: end up working in an Amazon warehouse. All of this
Speaker 1: is core le just to get to the outer limits
Speaker 1: of our atmosphere. That would obviously be a very cool experience.
Speaker 1: It looks really cool when you see the videos of
Speaker 1: Blue Origin. It's a lot of damage to the environment
Speaker 1: to not actually get out into space proper. These flights
Speaker 1: are sub orbital, they go to the edge of space,
Speaker 1: but not Neil Armstrong or buzz Older in space right now.
Speaker 1: It's just a very rich person's fairground ride dressed up
Speaker 1: as the future of civilization. I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: the dangers it poses to the environment, not to be preachy,
Speaker 1: but to show that when Blue Origin is talking about
Speaker 1: building a future for our kids, they're either not taken
Speaker 1: into account how badly this could affect people from lower
Speaker 1: socio economic backgrounds, or they just don't care. You can
Speaker 1: decide which when it is yourself. The carbon monoxide dumping
Speaker 1: is not the only issue related to Blue Origin. As
Speaker 1: is with every tentacle of the beast that is Amazon,
Speaker 1: there is always a scandal of foot. Blue Origin is
Speaker 1: no different. Serious allegations of past safety practices and the
Speaker 1: workplace culture at Blue Origin. That's a space company founded
Speaker 1: by billionaire Jeff Bezos. Ally Abrahams is one of a
Speaker 1: group of current informer Blue Origin employees who have issued
Speaker 1: a public letter exposing what they describe as a toxic
Speaker 1: atmosphere at the Amazon founders commercial space company. She believes
Speaker 1: the company's sacrifice safety because Bezos wanted to win the
Speaker 1: space race last year. In September, one group of former
Speaker 1: and current Blue Origin employees signed an open letter about
Speaker 1: the company, a legend that Bezos had created an unsafe
Speaker 1: working environment in a bid to win the billionaire commercial
Speaker 1: space race. Twenty one people signed the letter, and they're
Speaker 1: warning that the Blue Origin rockets could be unsafe. One
Speaker 1: of the Blue Orig engineers who signed the open letter
Speaker 1: went as far as to say, quote Blue Origin has
Speaker 1: been lucky that nothing has happened so far. End quote.
Speaker 1: The open letter goes on to say, quote today Blue
Speaker 1: Origin is selling seats on rockets, stating safety is their
Speaker 1: top mission, despite the fact that very few regulations are
Speaker 1: in place to ensure that this is truly the case. Internally,
Speaker 1: many of us did not see leadership invest in prioritizing
Speaker 1: sound systems engineering practices. Systems engineering products were created for
Speaker 1: New Shepherd after it was built and flying, rather than
Speaker 1: in the design phase. This impacted verification efforts end quote.
Speaker 1: The letter also claims that Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith
Speaker 1: personally made sure that an authoritarian environment was built at
Speaker 1: Blue Origin to try and stifle any issues employees working
Speaker 1: there might have. As we know from previous episodes of Megacorp,
Speaker 1: this is a tried and tested tactic at Amazon in
Speaker 1: the case of Bezos is Blue Origin. Smith's alleged behavior
Speaker 1: main lead to serious safety issues. From the letter, quote
Speaker 1: professional dissent at Blue Origin is actively stifled. Smith personally
Speaker 1: told one of us to not make it easy for
Speaker 1: employees to ask questions at company town Halls, one of
Speaker 1: the only available forums for live open discussion. Smith also
Speaker 1: asked his CEO for a list of employees who were
Speaker 1: troublemakers or agitators. The list was then distributed to senior
Speaker 1: leaders so they could have a talk with the agitators
Speaker 1: in their groups. Critics inside the company have been forced
Speaker 1: out for speaking up and offering payment in exchange for
Speaker 1: signing even more restrictive nondisclosure agreements, including some of the
Speaker 1: engineers who ensure the very safety of the rockets. Smith's
Speaker 1: in a circle of loyalists, makes unilateral decisions, often without
Speaker 1: the buying of engineers, other experts, or senior leaders across
Speaker 1: various departments. End quote. So, according to these twenty one
Speaker 1: current and former Blue Origin employees who wrote this s
Speaker 1: A slash open letter, the place is run with a
Speaker 1: STARSI like attitude where profit and speed is more important
Speaker 1: than safety and well being. Where we heard that before,
Speaker 1: It's like as above in space with Blue Origin, so
Speaker 1: below in the Amazon warehouse. Let's hear what Blue Origin
Speaker 1: whistleblower Alexandra Abrahams had to say about her time at
Speaker 1: Blue Origin. When I first joined Blue Origin, I felt
Speaker 1: like I was in star Trek, and I think I
Speaker 1: came to tears once when I was saying how grateful
Speaker 1: I was to be a part of this journey. The
Speaker 1: culture was one of collaboration, innovation, excitement, enthusiasm, nerdiness, which
Speaker 1: I just loved. But that did not stay the same
Speaker 1: for very long. She worked there as the head of
Speaker 1: internal communications from Seen to before she was fired, she says,
Speaker 1: because her managers claimed to have lost trust in her.
Speaker 1: I spend my days telling employees how we're saving humanity
Speaker 1: in the planet, and on the other end and having
Speaker 1: the woolf holed over my eyes about taking rights away
Speaker 1: from our employees. It was great that Blue Origin was
Speaker 1: smooth and steady and slow until Jeff started becoming impatient
Speaker 1: and Ellen and Branson were getting ahead, and then we
Speaker 1: started to feel this increasing pressure and in patients that
Speaker 1: would definitely filter down from leadership. When she's referring to
Speaker 1: Musk and Branson there, she's referring, of course, to Elon
Speaker 1: Musk and Richard Branson. Elon Musk owns space X, He's
Speaker 1: also been sending commercial rockets up into space, and Richard
Speaker 1: Branson has a similar thing with a virgin commercial space
Speaker 1: shuttle thing. According to Alexandra Abraham's the pressure to beat
Speaker 1: those law led to an environment of fear in the workplace.
Speaker 1: You cannot create a culture of safety and a culture
Speaker 1: of fear at the same time. They are incompatible. Oftentimes,
Speaker 1: when I would try to reconcile what I was hearing
Speaker 1: from the engineers who are close to the vehicle versus
Speaker 1: leadership about risk and safety, I would often go to
Speaker 1: leadership and say, Okay, how am I supposed to think
Speaker 1: about this? And often the response would be, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that person in particular just doesn't have a high enough
Speaker 1: risk tolerance. Just doesn't have a high enough risk tolerance.
Speaker 1: That wasn't bad enough. There are several allegations of sexism
Speaker 1: and harassment at Blue Origin. Women in Blue Origin were
Speaker 1: absolutely treated differently than men. Their ideas were not valued
Speaker 1: as much, they were not listened to. So on the surface,
Speaker 1: Blue Origin sounds like our gateway to a sci fire
Speaker 1: type future. The human race will jump on a Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos space shuttle and go to work on different planets
Speaker 1: to sort of save everyone else on Earth. In reality, though,
Speaker 1: the sheer amount of carbon dioxide each trip dumped into
Speaker 1: the atmosphere could potentially rapidly increase the levels of pollution
Speaker 1: and global warming here on Earth. Not only that from
Speaker 1: what we've just heard there was some very serious allegations
Speaker 1: of safety concerns at Blue Origin. Actual engineers have s
Speaker 1: and the open letter saying things like this quote. In
Speaker 1: company leaders demonstrated increasing impatience with new Shepherd schedule of
Speaker 1: a few flights per year. Their goal, routinely communicated to
Speaker 1: operations and maintenance staff, was to scale to more than
Speaker 1: forty Some of us felt that with the resources and
Speaker 1: staff available, leadership's race to launch at such a breakneck
Speaker 1: speed was seriously compromising flight safety. End quote. Now after
Speaker 1: hearing that, bear in mind that apparently thirteen of the
Speaker 1: twenty one people who signed this open letter are engineers
Speaker 1: that work or have worked at various different levels in
Speaker 1: Blue Origin. This isn't just somebody pulling this out of
Speaker 1: thin air. These people know what they're doing. As if
Speaker 1: the safety allegations weren't bad enough, there's this to top
Speaker 1: it off. Allegations that a quotes former executive frequently treated
Speaker 1: women in a condescending and the meaning manner, calling them
Speaker 1: baby girl, baby doll, or sweetheart, and inquiring about their
Speaker 1: dating lives. His inappropriate behavior was so well known that
Speaker 1: some women at the company took to warning new female
Speaker 1: hires to stay away from him all while he was
Speaker 1: in charge of recruiting employees. It appeared that he was
Speaker 1: protected by his close personal relationship with Bezos. It took
Speaker 1: him physically groping female subordinate for him to finally be
Speaker 1: let go end quote. Like with other things under the
Speaker 1: umbrella of Amazon, it sounds to me like top to bottom,
Speaker 1: there are very serious problems at Blue Origin. The thing
Speaker 1: that really spooked me the most, though, was something said
Speaker 1: by one of the engineers internally. CBS News obtained this.
Speaker 1: It's a Blue Origin internal memo written by one of
Speaker 1: their engineers. In In it, the engineer wrote, quote, our
Speaker 1: path is not a sufficiently safe path. End quote, Blue
Speaker 1: Origin not a sufficiently safe path. On the next episode
Speaker 1: of Megacorp, will be looking at a specific set of
Speaker 1: individual scandals at Amazon that don't really fit into their
Speaker 1: own box. They concern Amazon warehouse workers, drivers, and the
Speaker 1: choice of security guards that Amazon have once hired. Megacorp
Speaker 1: is made by my production company H eleven for Cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media. It's written, researched, and produced by myself, Jake Hanrahan.
Speaker 1: It was also produced by Sophie Lichtman. Music is by
Speaker 1: some Black Graphics by Adam Doyle and sound Engine earring
Speaker 1: by splicing block. If you want to get in touch,
Speaker 1: follow me on social media at Jake Underscore Handrahan. That's
Speaker 1: h a n A h a n