Apple Employs Amazon A9 Search Executive To Run Siri

According to reports, Apple has just nabbed Amazon A9 search executive, William Stasior, to take charge of the company’s Siri department. At Amazon, Stasior ran its A9 division, responsible for Amazon’s search and search advertising units. At Apple, Stasior will cover all new ground with the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad’s voice assistant, Siri. As we head into the future it will be interesting to see what type of changes Stasior brings to the table.


William Stasior’s placement within the Siri division comes a whole year after Siri co-founder, Dag Kittlaus, had left Apple. But Kittlaus wasn’t the only executive to letdown Siri over the past year — Adam Cheyer, another co-founder of Siri left Apple earlier last month too. Based off the immediate facts, Stasior will be replacing the jobs of these two co-founders.

Current functionality of Apple’s Siri application has left many unimpressed. A majority of questions you ask the voice assistant will respond, “would you like to make a web search,” which is a feature Apple needs to work on. With Stasior having experience in the search department he may be a huge addition to the Siri team.

The history behind Stasior is impressive to say the least. He has worked with Oracle, AltaVista, and then accepted a job with Amazon in 2003 as a director of search and navigation. After nine enjoyful years with Amazon, Stasior has left for a larger opportunity with Apple — Amazon hasn’t commented on his departure.

Source: 9to5mac

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Ryan St. Onge

I'm Ryan, the latest addition to The Tech Journal team. You can find me on a Twitter and view my personal website here.

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