Jeff Bezos Is Being Knocked Back Down to Earth
On the night he went to space, Jeff Bezos threw a party for his employees. The hotel restaurant in Van Horn, a town in West Texas not far from the launch site, was thrumming. Inside, someone had cut into the frosted Blue of Blue Origin on a big vanilla sheet cake. Outside, a live band jammed beneath a tent skimmed with café lights. Everyone was a little buzzed and a lot relieved. They had just launched their boss to space from the middle of the desert. That morning, as Bezos and the other passengers prepared to board, an anonymous voice was heard on the event’s live-stream saying, “We’re not fucking this up today.” They had followed through on that vow, thank heavens, and now they could finally exhale.
Bezos celebrated elsewhere, at a private party outside town. The Amazon founder had stepped down as CEO a couple weeks before the trip to focus on his space business and of going to space, he had signaled to the world (and potential paying customers) that Blue Origin could take them too. Since then, he has he spends at the company, from one afternoon a week to two, and Blue Origin that its next paying customers, two tech executives, would fly next month. William Shatner—yes, Captain Kirk himself— might join them.
