Age: 44
From: Seattle
Veteran Affair: Reid has spent almost her entire career at Amazon (AMZN), where she is now director of product for its Amazon Echo devices and Alexa unit. She carries a purple badge that designates employees who have been at the company for 15 years or more. With each new Amazon role, “I feel like I’ve taken a job at a new startup,” she says.
Fast Friend: Reid leads the team behind Alexa, Amazon’s artificial-intelligence-powered, voice-activated assistant, which controls Echo, its popular home automation device. A recent development: training Alexa to turn down music playback when a person asks her a question. “We tried to emulate what a real person would do,” Reid says.
Fair Warning: Reid set up her own Echo device to tell her if it is raining in Seattle so that she grabs her umbrella.
Lift Ticket: When Reid isn’t driving her daughters (ages 10 and 13) to soccer games, she loves to snowboard and ski. Says Reid: “The weekends are for time with my kids.”
For more on Amazon, watch this Coins2Day video:
A version of this article appears in the November 1, 2016 issue of Coins2Day with the headline “Toni Reid—Director of Product, Amazon.”
