Today we’re getting news of a pretty big hire for Apple – the iPhone maker has managed to pull William Stasior away from Amazon and has put him in charge of Siri. Stasior had been working at Amazon since 2003, and during his 9-year tenure there, he served as the head of search and navigation. More specifically, he was in charge of Amazon A9, which handles search and search advertising for the company.
Now he’s at Apple, and he has just as important a role there serving as the guy in charge of Siri, which is need of a leader after Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer left in search of greener pastures last month. Siri has undoubtedly changed the way people use their iPhones, but there’s still plenty of work to be done on the voice recognition service. That’s where Stasior comes in, and there isn’t any question that Apple will put him to work improving Siri almost immediately.
All Things D points out that Stasior’s new gig at Apple could amount to much more than just leading the continuing development of Siri, however. Given his history as a search executive at Amazon, it’s quite possible that Apple views Stasior as someone who can help the company even the odds against Google when it comes to search advertising. He’ll probably do quite a bit to help Apple in the search space with his work on Siri, but it may not be long before Stasior is looking at broader list of duties at Apple.
For the moment though, Stasior be primarily focused on Siri. Siri is already a great program, but Stasior can definitely help improve it. We’re looking forward to seeing what, specifically, Stasior will be doing at Apple, and this will certainly be an exciting time for all of the Siri addicts out there. Stay tuned.
Apple pulls William Stasior away from Amazon to head up Siri is written by SlashGear.
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