“When discussing Blue Origin, it’s almost impossible not to compare the company to SpaceX, which also has a prominent billionaire founder, Elon Musk. Bezos’ comments about being decisive are striking because that is one of the secrets to SpaceX’s success.”
It’s not about faster, it’s about the approach. They were out there pushing National Team landers, Orbital Reef, giant multistage orbital rockets, brand new engines for ULA rockets. And all they’d managed to do was build a small sub-orbital rocket and capsule. There’s no iteration from that, no building the company structures, setting pathways for development and testing. Those allow you to plan the commercial offerings with confidence (Praise Shotwell) and created space to think about those more ambitious projects.
SpaceX succeeded because Kestrel and Falcon 1 was the focus, and eventually that worked. Other possible follow-ons like Falcon 5 and Air were scrapped. What they learned as an organisation allowed them to move on to Merlin, Falcon 9 and Dragon. That capacity may be there at BO, but there’s no substitute to experience.