{"id":17458,"date":"2021-11-16T01:17:39","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T17:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/jeff-bezos-says-hes-spending-more-on-his-earth-fund-than-on-blue-origin-space-shots\/"},"modified":"2021-11-16T01:17:39","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T17:17:39","slug":"jeff-bezos-says-hes-spending-more-on-his-earth-fund-than-on-blue-origin-space-shots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/jeff-bezos-says-hes-spending-more-on-his-earth-fund-than-on-blue-origin-space-shots\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Bezos says he\u2019s spending more on his Earth Fund than on Blue Origin space shots"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/21115-bezos-630x354.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-654727\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/21115-bezos-630x354.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/21115-bezos-1260x709.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/21115-bezos-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/21115-bezos-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/21115-bezos.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption>Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, talks about the link between space and Earth\u2019s welfare with moderator Adi Ignatius at a forum at Washington National Cathedral. (Space SPAN via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture has been getting a lot of press lately, but the Amazon founder and chairman says he\u2019s spending more money nowadays on Earth\u2019s environmental welfare through his Bezos Earth Fund.<\/p>\n<p>Four and a half years ago, Bezos told reporters that he was selling about a billion dollars\u2019 worth of his Amazon stock on a yearly basis to put toward Blue Origin.<\/p>\n<p>But at least for the time being, he says that\u2019s trumped by his $10 billion, 10-year commitment to the Bezos Earth Fund, which distributes grants to projects around the globe. During this month\u2019s U.N. climate summit in Scotland, the fund announced a $2 billion round of grants supporting land restoration and food production.<\/p>\n<p>Bezos cited the funding during last week\u2019s Ignatius Forum at the Washington National Cathedral in D.C. as evidence that he wasn\u2019t just a starry-eyed billionaire with no concern about Earth\u2019s welfare.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m actually spending even more money on the Bezos Earth Fund than I\u2019m spending on space,\u201d he told Harvard Business Review editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the discussion touched upon themes that Bezos has brought up before \u2014 including the idea that the world is going to have to turn to space resources and put the bulk of its heavy-industry facilities in space in order to preserve our own planet for \u201cresidential\u201d zoning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not to leave the Earth, it\u2019s to save the Earth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Longer-range, Bezos foresees an economy supported by millions of people living and working in space \u2014 perhaps in the sorts of manufactured habitats envisioned by his mentor at Princeton, the late physicist Gerard O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Our Future in Space, Ignatius Forum, Washington Cathedral, November 10, 2021\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/67KZfeZyw_U?start=2442&amp;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Bezos confirmed, once again, the claim by a high-school girlfriend that he founded Amazon in part to accumulate the wealth he could put toward his space venture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is extremely handy to have a lucrative day job if you are going to have a very expensive night job, and that\u2019s what Blue Origin is, for sure,\u201d he told Ignatius.<\/p>\n<p>Today, Blue Origin has about 4,000 employees, with most of them based at the company\u2019s headquarters in Kent, Wash. Bezos himself was among those taking the first ride on Blue Origin\u2019s New Shepard suborbital spaceship in Texas this summer, and the orbital-class New Glenn rocket is under development in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin is continuing to work on its lunar lander concept even though it lost out to SpaceX on an initial contract, and it\u2019s also leading an industry team that\u2019s aiming to build a commercial space station during the next decade.<\/p>\n<p>During last week\u2019s event, Bezos played up the connection between outer-space experiences and a wider perspective on Earth and its environment, also known as the Overview Effect. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe magnitude of that experience was so much bigger than I could have ever anticipated,\u201d he said, \u201cand it really is such a change in perspective that shows you in a very powerful and emotional way just how fragile this Earth is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bezos said each of Blue Origin\u2019s space travelers becomes \u201can ambassador for Earth\u201d after the flight. He pointed in particular to how deeply Star Trek actor William Shatner was moved by his suborbital spaceflight in October.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen he did start to speak, it was one of the most moving experiences of my life,\u201d Bezos said. \u201cHe was so emotional, there were tears streaming down his face. \u2026 He has been the best ambassador for looking at this planet and that transformation that he experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The next New Shepard flight is expected to take place by the end of the year, and the launch pace could pick up next year. So far, Blue Origin has been relying on private sales, at as-yet-undisclosed prices that might range into millions of dollars. But Bezos promised that the price will come down as the space travel industry transitions from the equivalent of the 1920s-era barnstorming era to the equivalent of the 21st-century commercial jet era.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to get to the 787 of space travel,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we do that, that will unlock this experience for millions of people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also promised, half-jokingly, that future space settlements will be able to get Amazon Prime. \u201cIt\u2019ll be built in,\u201d he said. \u201cAmazon hypersonic delivery: It\u2019s coming soon to you.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, talks about the link between space and Earth\u2019s welfare with moderator Adi Ignatius at a forum at Washington National Cathedral. (Space SPAN via YouTube) Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture has been getting a lot of press lately, but the Amazon founder and chairman says he\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4698,509,651,1046,1250,4402],"class_list":["post-17458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bezos-earth-fund","tag-blue-origin","tag-environment","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-new-shepard","tag-suborbital-spaceflight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}