Bezos' Blue Origin Called 'Toxic' Workplace by Current, Former Staff Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has been labeled a "toxic" workplace by 21 current and former staffers, who posted an essay Thursday.
By Emily Rella
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has been labeled a "toxic" workplace by 21 current and former staffers, who posted an essay Thursday.
Former Blue Origin head of employee communications Alexandra Abrams headed up the piece, which said the company makes employees sign NDAs, ignores safety concerns, is not open to internal feedback and is sexist. She was the only one to sign it, though 20 other unnamed current and former staffers endorsed it.
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"Blue Origin currently has more than 3,600 employees spanning six states and several countries. However, in the company Bezos has created, the workforce dedicated to establishing this future "for all' is mostly male and overwhelmingly white. One-hundred percent of the senior technical and program leaders are men," she wrote, adding that a senior executive was reported to human resources for sexual harassment multiple times and another referred to female employees as "baby girl," "baby doll" and "sweetheart."
Abrams also appeared on CBS News Thursday, saying, "You cannot create a culture of safety and a culture of fear at the same time. They are incompatible."
She said she's "gotten far enough away from it" that she's no longer afraid to speak out.
According to CNBC, Blue Origin says Abrams was "dismissed for cause" two years ago "after repeated warnings for issues involving federal export control regulations," which she contested in her own statement, saying she never received any warnings about federal export control regulations.
