Mike George, the Amazon VP responsible for many of the company’s widely successful products, including virtual assistant Alexa and Echo smart devices, is stepping down after nearly two decades with the Seattle-based tech behemoth.

In his Linkedin profile, which now lists him as “retired”, George said: “Retired from Amazon after 20 years. Loved every minute. Not checking out, just changing the game :-).”

George will be replaced by Tom Taylor, a senior vice president who has been running the Amazon payments and fulfilment businesses. George at one stage also ran the Amazon Appstore, but that part of the business has been shifted to Amazon’s devices and services organisation.