Blue Origin has confirmed that Dave Limp, who is leaving his post as Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, will take over as the CEO of Jeff Bezos’ privately held space venture.
The current CEO, longtime aerospace executive Bob Smith, is retiring from the post but will stay on with Blue Origin until January to help with the transition, a company spokesperson told GeekWire in an email.
Limp presided over Amazon’s Echo hardware line and its Alexa voice assistant business, among other initiatives. The most relevant initiative for Blue Origin would be his oversight of Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite project, which is due to have its first prototype satellites launched as soon as next month.
Those satellites will be sent into low Earth orbit on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, but Blue Origin is a major contractor for the Kuiper launches to come.
Reports about the transition began percolating out on social media today, after Blue Origin distributed internal memos to the company’s staff. In today’s emailed statement, Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin praised Limp’s record at Amazon.
“Dave is a proven innovator with a customer-first mindset. He has extensive experience in the high-tech industry and growing highly complex organizations, including leading Amazon’s Kuiper, Kindle, Alexa, Zoox, Fire TV and many other businesses,” Blue Origin’s statement noted.
The statement also paid tribute to Smith’s leadership: “In his six years, Bob led Blue Origin’s transformation from an R&D-focused company into a multifaceted space business nearing $10 billion in customer orders and over 10,000 employees. Dave will join in December, and Bob will be here through January 2 to ensure a smooth transition.”
Under Smith’s watch, Blue Origin began sending spacefliers — including Bezos — on suborbital trips using its New Shepard rocket ship. The company also ramped up efforts to build its orbital-class New Glenn rocket and unveiled the Orbital Reef space station project. This year, Blue Origin and its partners won a $3.4 billion contract to work on a lunar lander for NASA’s use, after losing out to SpaceX for an earlier contract.
For what it’s worth, Smith’s tenure has also been marked by controversy, including internal acrimony over Blue Origin’s COVID policies and concerns relating to safety and sexual harassment.
If Limp’s tenure lasts as long as Smith’s, he could oversee the resumption of crewed suborbital space trips after a yearlong hiatus, as well as the start of Blue Origin’s orbital space program and its participation in crewed missions to the moon.
Meanwhile, Amazon is expected to name longtime Microsoft executive Panos Panay to take Limp’s place as its devices and services chief. Microsoft announced Panay’s departure just last week.
