By Greg Bensinger
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Just days after putting on its annual devices and services showcase, Amazon is losing a vice president who helps oversee the division.
Rob Williams, vice president of device software and services and a member of the elite internal group known as the S-team advising CEO Andy Jassy, left his post and will step down entirely from Amazon at year’s end, according to a memo sent internally Thursday and reviewed by Reuters. Amazon confirmed the memo after a query from Reuters without providing additional detail.
“Rob has had a big impact on the software and experiences of nearly all of the products we’ve created and shipped,” said Panos Panay, the senior vice president of devices and services, in the memo. He said Williams decided to “retire from Amazon,” but Reuters could not learn his future plans.
Panay also announced the consolidation of several teams in his unit, including moving the Alexa Smart Vehicle team into the broader Alexa group. He said the changes were effective Thursday including the elevation of Tapas Roy, previously a vice president overseeing Fire TV product and engineering, to Williams’ former post.
Williams will remain an advisor to Panay and on the S-team through the end of 2025, according to the memo.
It is rare for S-team, or senior leadership team, members to depart, as the group is regarded as a badge of honor within the company with unique access to the CEO. Williams, who joined the 29-member S-team in late 2022 and worked at Amazon for 12 years, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
He attended Amazon’s devices event on Tuesday in New York where the firm showed off an array of new products like refreshed Echo voice assistant speakers, color Kindle e-readers and Fire TV sets with improved screen quality.
The money-losing devices and services unit has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs as it pares back on products. A multi-year project to update its Alexa voice assistant with embedded generative artificial intelligence has rolled out slowly and has no clear path to profitability and Amazon is overhauling its Fire tablets with Android operating software for the first time, Reuters reported in August.
Earlier this week, Williams in a LinkedIn post touted the debut of a new operating system called Vega that will be in use in forthcoming Fire TV devices, including a streaming stick available later this month. Amazon’s proprietary Vega is meant to replace Google’s Android software and promises faster speeds at lower prices.
“No one else has anything like it,” said Williams in the post, only his second in the past two years.
(Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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