"My dad got to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.<p>I get to watch the guy who killed book stores ride a giant dick into space."<p><a href="https://ibb.co/t2tcN3p" rel="nofollow">https://ibb.co/t2tcN3p</a>
In the last month it seems that Amazon has incessantly asked my opinion about every product and service I use (e.g. the store, Amazon Music, ...)<p>My answer is always some variant of "I don't like the way you treat the help"
Of course it is.<p>Big successes do not erase equally big failures. And the failure here, not on Amazon alone, is far too many Americans not earning enough from their labor the fund continuing to exist reasonably and show up to work.
> The real shame is that, as Bezos pointed out, hundreds of people worked incredibly hard to design, test, and operate the New Shepard rocket booster and space capsule. Blue Origin has refused multiple requests to interview these engineers and let them share the challenges they surmounted to create this vehicle; no executives joined the crew for a post-flight press conference.<p>SpaceX very much branded its initial launches as "we are what NASA should have been." Countless appearances and interviews with people who were very clearly "engineers' engineers" excited out of their minds to be working on the project. It was clear that there was overflowing passion given a very "shiny" space to dream, and that was the guiding light. You could disagree with Elon Musk and still admire his ability to build, inspire, and fund such a team. You could see the light in their eyes and want to contribute like them some day.<p>Blue Origin was very much starting from a disadvantage, not being the first private-industry movers. But - and I think this is critical - they also made an unforced error by insulating the public from the passion their engineers undoubtedly have. It makes it very much the Jeff Bezos Show, which makes the whole venture much more susceptible to public opinion about Bezos personally. His tone-deaf remarks on customers "paying" for the venture dug that hole even deeper.<p>Setting aside emotion, whoever paves the way for space exploration in the coming decade needs to inspire. I'm going to root for the team that understands what it means to inspire. And that makes it impossible for me to root for Blue Origin.
I’m personally rather bored with the hobbies and tastes of these modern tech billionaires like Jeff and Elon. A few years back, there was a total global circumnavigation of the world in a solar powered 2 person airplane based in Switzerland, I forget the project name. This thing did not have to land to charge batteries but could stay aloft indefinitely, albeit at a very floppy wing surface area to weight ratio, and the resulting vulnerability to wind and low speed. Such a project or something that presents and actual investment that only a billionaire could provide are eschewed in favor of juvenile pissing contests like Mr. Branson and Mr. Bezos pursue