January 7: The similar genesis of Echo and iPod

The genesis of Amazon Echo arose out of intuition rather than market research.

Source: Invent and Wander (page 17)
Published: November 2020

The similar genesis of Echo and iPod

In his book Invent and Wander, author Walter Isaacson wrote:

The genesis of Amazon Echo was, in one way, like Steve Jobs’s development of Apple iPod. It arose out of intuition rather than focus groups, and it was not in response to some obvious customer demand. “No customer was asking for Echo,” Bezos says. “Market research doesn’t help. If you had gone to a customer in 2013 and said, ‘Would you like a black, always-on cylinder in your kitchen about the size of a Pringles can that you can talk to and ask questions, that also turns on your lights and plays music?’ I guarantee you they’d have looked at you strangely and said ‘No, thank you.’”

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