Amazon’s devices unit has a new team tasked with inventing “breakthrough” consumer products that’s being led by a former Microsoft executive who helped create the Xbox.
The ZeroOne team is spread across Seattle, San Francisco and Sunnyvale, California, and is focused on both hardware and software projects, according to job postings from the past month. The name is a nod to its mission of developing emerging product ideas from conception to launch, or “zero to one.”
Amazon has a checkered history in hardware, with hits including the Kindle e-reader, Echo smart speaker and Fire streaming sticks, as well as flops like the Fire Phone, Halo fitness tracker and Glow kids teleconferencing device.
Many of the products emerged from Lab126, Amazon’s hardware research and development unit, which is based in Silicon Valley.
The new group is being led by J Allard, who spent 19 years at Microsoft, most recently as technology chief of consumer products, a role he left in 2010, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was a key architect of the Xbox game console, as well as the Zune, a failed iPod competitor.
Allard joined Amazon in September, and the company confirmed at the time that he would be part of the devices and services team under Panos Panay, who left Microsoft for Amazon in 2023 to lead the group.
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed Allard oversees ZeroOne but declined to comment further on the group’s work.
The job postings provide few specific details about what ZeroOne is building, though one listing references working on “conceiving, designing, and bringing to market computer vision techniques for a new smart-home product.”
Another post for a senior customer insights manager in San Francisco says the job entails owning “the methodology and execution of concept testing and early feedback for ZeroOne programs.”
“You’ll be part of a team that embraces design thinking, rapid experimentation, and building to learn,” the description says. “If you’re excited about working in small, nimble teams to create entirely new product categories and thrive in the ambiguity of breakthrough innovation, we want to talk to you.”
Amazon has pulled in staffers from other business units that have experience developing innovative technologies, including its Alexa voice assistant, Luna cloud gaming service and Halo sleep tracker, according to Linkedin profiles of ZeroOne employees. The head of a projection mapping startup called Lightform that Amazon acquired is helping lead the group.
While Amazon is expanding this particular corner of its devices group, the company is scaling back other areas of the sprawling devices and services division.
Earlier this month, Amazon laid off about 100 of the group’s employees. The job cuts included staffers working on Alexa and Amazon Kids, which develops services for children, as well as Lab126, according to public filings and people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to confidentiality. More than 50 employees were laid off at Amazon’s Lab126 facilities in Sunnyvale, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filings in California.
Amazon said the job cuts affected a fraction of a percent of the devices and services organization, which has tens of thousands of employees.