Amazon Hardware Chief is Leaving the Company
- Laurent Giret
- Aug 15, 2023
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Dave Limp, Senior Vice President of Devices and Services at Amazon is leaving the company. In a message shared with the company’s employees yesterday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that Limp will continue to work at Amazon for the next few months and that his successor should be announced in the coming weeks.
Limp joined Amazon back in March 2010 where he oversaw the development of Amazon’s devices including Kindle e-readers, Echo speakers, Fire TV devices, Fire tablets, and more. The tech veteran was also responsible for the development of Amazon’s services including Alexa and the Amazon Android App Store.
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In a separate note to employees, Limp explained that it was time for him to “look into the future through a different lens and move on from the consumer electronics space.” The exec added that his retirement isn’t a consequence of Amazon’s struggles to turn its devices and services into big money-makers for the company.
“It’s not because I am less bullish about the devices and services business,” Limp wrote. “I am amazed at the momentum of all our businesses. Engagement is at an all-time high, customer satisfaction is also at some of our highest levels ever.”
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Amazon laid off 27,000 employees over the past year, and the job cuts have hit the company’s devices and services division pretty hard. Even though Amazon became a big player in the smart home market with its Alexa-powered devices, the digital assistant is hard to monetize as it turns out barely anyone is using Alexa to do shopping on Amazon.
Google apparently came to the same conclusion and cut investments in Assistant-powered speakers. However, the company has reportedly started working on a revamped version of its Assistant that will use the same large language model technology as ChatGPT or Google Bard.
Amazon previously teased a hardware event on September 20, so we won’t have to wait long to see what the company is planning to release in the fall season. “Our current roadmap is amazing and what we have in the pipeline just makes me smile,” Limp said in his note to employees.