Amazon Alexa and Echo head Mike George announces retirement

• George also oversaw Amazon's app store, which will now fall under the senior vice president of Amazon's Devices & Services organization Dave Limp.
• Tom Taylor, senior vice president of Amazon Payments and Fulfillment By Amazon businesses, reportedly will take over for George as the new chief for Alexa and Echo.

Mike George, VP Alexa, Echo and Appstore for Amazon, speaks during the LG press conference at CES in Las Vegas, January 4, 2017

Rick Wilking | Reuters

Amazon Echo and Alexa VP Mike George has retired after two decades with the company.

George made the announcement on LinkedIn, which now lists him as "retired." He also posted a message: "Retired from Amazon after ~20 years. Loved every minute. Not checking out, just changing the game :-)" The news was first reported by GeekWire.

Since Amazon Alexa was introduced in 2014, 10.7 million Amazon customers have purchased an Alex-powered device according to a survey released in May. That number has likely increased substantially following this week's Amazon Prime Day. The company said the best-selling product on the day was the Echo Dot.

Tom Taylor, senior vice president of Amazon Payments and Fulfillment By Amazon businesses will take over for George as the new chief for Alexa and Echo, according to GeekWire.

Amazon did not immediately respond to request for comment.