The man behind Amazon’s drive to fill your home with Echo speakers and smart displays, Ring cameras, and maybe even a robot, will leave the online retail giant.
Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, said in a blog post that he is stepping down after nearly 14 years at the company.
Under Limp, Amazon became one of the world’s most influential consumer tech companies. He led teams building devices and accompanying services such as Kindle, Fire TV, Alexa, and Echo. The Echo smart speaker was a wholly new market Amazon built on its own, and the popularity of Alexa drove other companies to further develop their own smart assistants.
It wasn’t all wins for Limp. Amazon’s Echo line was difficult to monetize, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company also had its share of flops, notably the Fire smartphone with its 3D camera lenses.
Limp said it was simply time to leave.
“I’ve been doing a version of this job… on and off for 30+ years. I love it, but I also want to look into the future through a different lens,” said Limp. “I am not sure what that future is right now, with the notable exception that it won’t be in the consumer electronics space.
To his team, Limp said they are “masters of [their] craft.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy lauded Limp’s work in the same blog post.
“Dave has been an outstanding innovator, exhibited strong judgment, and ownership, and built a strong organization with high standards,” Jassy said.
Limp will stay on at Amazon for a few more months to help transition Amazon to his successor. Amazon has not picked the next chief of devices yet but said it expects to make an announcement in the upcoming weeks.
He will also stick around through Amazon’s fall product release event on September 20, which Jassy and Limp agree will reveal products the pair are “excited and quite optimistic about.”Limp is the latest executive to leave Amazon since Jassy became chief executive in 2021. Jassy has been leading a cost cutting initiative throughout Amazon’s devices, services, and gadgets division since taking the role, eliminating 27,000 jobs this year alone, according to Investing.