President of Amazon’s Lab126, Gregg Zehr who is credited to have invented the Kindle has stepped down from the company. This brings to end an illustrious career spanning 18 years at Amazon during which he not only developed the Kindle e-Reader but is believed to have helped shape Lab126. This lab is the secretive Amazon hardware division where all of the company’s tech ambitions take shape. No wonder, Zehr will be leaving behind a legacy that helped shape Amazon into what it is today. One of his most recent ventures has been the development of the smart home robot Astro.
Meanwhile, joining the list of high-profile executives who have recently retired from Amazon include SVP of Alexa Tom Taylor. Interestingly, Taylor announced his retirement the same day as Zehr did. Taylor has been associated with Amazon since 2000 and has initially been working at the payments and fulfillment section. He later lent his expertise to the development of the Alexa smart voice-assistant technology.
Apart from Zehr and Taylor, 90 senior long time executives who have left Amazon ever since Jeff Bezos stepped down and came to be replaced by Andy Jassy. What all of this points to is that Jassy will have to create a new team to take the company forward, much as Bezos did during the formative years. Both the Kindle and Echo range of speakers have gained a strong foothold in the market. Alexa too has emerged as a reliable smart voice assistant technology that is available not only on Amazon branded devices but in a plethora of other smart gadgets as well ranging from smart TVs to automobiles and almost everything in between.
Jassy will have to keep working on these while also coming up with new technology and devices to ensure Amazon is able to hold on to its leadership position. The company already stated they have backfilled both Zehr and Taylor’s positions with ‘strong internal leaders.’ While infusion of fresh talent can make things all the more exciting though it is going to be interesting to see how things pan out in the coming days.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
