2014
Brad Stone says Jeff Bezos launched Alexa only a couple of months after the embarrassing Fire Phone flop.
“He humiliates himself with the Fire Phone, and then launches Alexa a couple of months later.”
Topic
Amazon Alexa
6 facts from 2 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
Undated
Jeff Bezos described the concept behind Alexa in an email to executives as a $20 computer whose brains are in the cloud and that is controlled by voice.
“a $20 computer whose brains are in the cloud, controllable by voice.”
Undated
Brad Stone says GM Voices, a studio in Atlanta, produced the Siri voice and likely also produced Alexa's.
“There's one in Atlanta that produces Siri called GM Voices.”
Undated
After Bezos walked out of a meeting over slow data collection, the Alexa team created the Amped program to collect data in the real world.
“he believes the Alexa team isn't collecting data fast enough, and he walks out of the meeting, and they come up with the Amped program”
Undated
Kahn cites studies of men left alone with Amazon's Alexa who became abusive toward the female-voiced assistant and sometimes carried those habits into real relationships.
“Particularly, there's some interesting studies about men who have been left alone with Alexa, um, basically the Amazon digital assistant.”
Undated
Kahn says pressure on Amazon led to a parent-enabled Alexa mode that responds only when a child is polite.
“it's one of the reasons there was actually some pressure put on Amazon to introduce a mode to Alexa that a parent can turn on, where the Alexa will only respond if the child is polite”
Episodes