Veteran Amazon devices and services exec Dave Limp to retire
The man who oversaw the development of Amazon devices including Alexa, Echo, Kindle and Fire TV is leaving the company.
In a corporate blog post, Amazon announced that Dave Limp, senior VP, devices & services, has decided to retire after a 13.5-year tenure with the company. Limp, who joined Amazon in March 2010, will remain in his role for the next few months, and Amazon says it will name his successor in the coming weeks.
“Under Dave’s leadership, Amazon has become one of the world’s leading innovators in building devices and underlying services that customers love,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in the blog post. “Dave has been an outstanding innovator, exhibited strong judgment and ownership, and built a strong organization with high standards.
“I remain excited and quite optimistic about the products and services we’re building in devices and services—we’re at the relative beginning of what’s possible and what I believe these businesses will add for customers and the company,” Jassy said.
In the same blog post, Limp, who previously worked at Apple and Palm, said the “tough decision” to leave Amazon after almost 14 years has nothing to do with his team, whose members he referred to as “masters of (their) craft,” or his feelings about the devices and services business or about Amazon.
“Our current roadmap is amazing and what we have in the pipeline just makes me smile, Limp said. “On top of all of that, we are living in the golden age of computer science. Our teams are in the middle of this revolution and I am so excited for the world to see what we have brewing for customers."
“So why?,” Limp asked rhetorically. “It's time. I have been doing a version of this job (building and shipping consumer electronics) on and off for 30-plus years. I love it, but I also want look into the future through a different lens. I am not sure what that future is right now, with the notable exception that it won’t be in the consumer electronics space. I will be around for a few more months and we have a lot to deliver on with our fall products.”
Limp leaves following layoffs
In November 2022, Amazon publicly announced it had decided to “consolidate” some teams and programs in the devices and services organization which Limp oversees as part of a broader round of 10,000 corporate and technology job cuts.
In a note released to staffers at that time, Limp said the e-tail giant continued to face an “unusual and uncertain macroeconomic environment,” and had been performing “deep reviews” to prioritize its areas of business focus in the past few months.
“While I know this news is tough to digest, I do want to emphasize that the devices & services organization remains an important area of investment for Amazon, and we will continue to invent on behalf of our customers,” Limp said in the note. “Having gone through times like this in the past, I know that when there's a difficult economy, customers tend to gravitate to the companies and products they believe have the best customer experience and that take care of them the best. Historically, Amazon has done a very good job at this."
Limp started his career at Apple, where he worked from 1987 to 1996, rising to the position of director of the North and South American PowerBook division. From 1997 to 2002, he served as chief strategy officer of Liberate Technologies, and then took the role of chief strategy officer of Palm. In his last position before joining Amazon, Limp spent four years as a venture partner at Azure Capital.