Virgin Orbit, a company within Virgin Group (owned by billionaire Richard Branson), hasn’t been doing so well this year since its first official launch failed in January. The launch failure caused a complete loss of cargo, resulting in a significant financial loss for the company. Although some companies like SpaceX would see this as growing pains filled with valuable data to learn from so that future launches have a better chance, Virgin Orbit didn’t seem to have the same vision.
Last month, the company made the decision to furlough the majority of its employees instead, causing a continued drop in its stock and many questions surrounding its leadership. A topic its COO (part of those laid off from the company) touched on in an email to employees, apologizing that things didn’t go better and for the lack of leadership that could have done better).
The company kept a skeleton crew that was capable to continue thumbing through data as it investigated what went wrong, while also attempting to secure a source of financial aid that could keep the company running. However, hopes of this diminished when the one party the company was in discussion with wound up being a dead end. Causing the company to move forward with seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday.
This feels like something that should have gone beyond the decisions made by the CEO of the company. If this company was owned by certain other billionaires (that we don’t really have to mention out loud) that actually believed in what the company was trying to achieve, then they would have stepped in to save the company themselves. However, Richard Brandon was nowhere to be found outside of various involvements in talks while looking for outside investors. Branson, being a philanthropist himself, seemed to have no interest in taking any risk personally.
If you aren’t willing to risk it yourself and have plenty of money and potential to do it, it’s kind of hard to believe that many outside investors would feel confident with what’s going on behind the scenes. If Branson truly felt the company has the strength to put Britain on the map for the space game, he likely would have stepped in to set things straight. Instead, it was just another opportunity to make money that wasn’t working well enough for him and nothing else. No vision for humanity’s future is to be found this round.
This is truly too bad as many of us here were rooting the company on along with many others looking to get their stake in the space game. This is the competition and initiative humanity needs to be able to make things more reachable (including reaching the stars someday). For now, it is just one less name in the game trying to make a difference for the bigger dream.
