Blue Origin, the space company started 24 years ago by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has a new CEO. Dave Limp, the former head of Amazon’s device division, will succeed Bob Smith, who joined from Honeywell in 2017.
Limp takes over in December; his hiring was first reported by CNBC.
Blue Origin has pushed an ambitious vision of thousands of humans living and working in space, but its greatest accomplishment so far has been developing New Shepard, a small rocket and space capsule that takes experiments and passengers (including Bezos in 2021) to the edge of space for a few minutes.
Limp is walking into a job replete with challenges: New Shepard has been grounded for more than a year since the failure of an uncrewed mission in 2022. Blue Origin’s long-awaited orbital rocket, New Glenn, is now four years behind its original schedule and may debut next year. Blue Origin won a contract to develop a vehicle to carry astronauts to the surface of the Moon and plans to launch a futuristic space station, but it hasn’t shared updates on the complex technology needed to realize these missions.
The company is also waiting to see the BE-4 rocket engines it built for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket take flight. That vehicle was supposed to make its debut this year, but it’s been delayed due to issues apparently unrelated to Blue’s engines.
In a letter to employees, Smith said he took pride in building Blue from its roots as a research organization into a “large, prominent space business.” But while Blue spent billions during Smith’s tenure hiring more than 9,000 workers and constructing enormous new facilities, and did win contracts to launch satellites and build that Moon lander, the missing element has been execution.
Blue Origin’s culture under Smith has been criticized by former and current staff. Alexandra Abrams and 20 anonymous employees said in 2021 that they were aware of numerous incidents of sexual harassment, including allegations against a top aide to Smith, that went unaddressed. Former employees have also criticized the company’s safety culture, saying that executives at Blue asked engineers to do too much without enough time or funding.
Blue Origin turns to Amazon for a new leader
Bezos wrote an email to Blue employees to introduce Limp, whose most prominent work at Amazon was leading the development of the Kindle e-reader, the Fire TV, and the Alexa smart speaker. Bezos paid Limp his top compliment—“a customer-first mindset”—but the billionaire entrepreneur’s most important observation was that “Dave has an outstanding sense of urgency, brings and energy to everything, and helps teams move very fast.”
The space industry certainly hopes so. Blue Origin has been held out as the only company with the capital and the vision to compete with SpaceX at a time when Elon Musk’s firm has a virtual monopoly on satellite launch and human spaceflight in the US and Europe. US officials and satellite executives alike are eager to see more options to reach space, and competition that could push down the cost of getting there.
Limp is also notable in not having an aerospace engineering background; besides Musk, he’ll be the first CEO of a modern rocket company without one. He did, however, oversee Amazon’s Kuiper satellite project, which aims to launch thousands of spacecraft to provide internet connectivity from orbit, akin to SpaceX’s Starlink network.
That experience should help Limp understand the needs of his future satellite launch customers, but it also could offer legal complications: Shareholders are suing Amazon, alleging that it awarded billions of dollars in launch contracts to Blue Origin improperly during Limp’s tenure. While Amazon denies the allegations, Limp reappearing as Blue’s CEO will doubtless come up in court.