Amazon's Jeff Bezos faces disaster in Super Bowl ad teaser
Commentary: A short spot released Friday shows the company undergoing a product crisis. Alexa has lost her voice.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
A prime role for the CEO.
What's the worst thing that could happen to your favorite tech company?
For Samsung, it might be if its phones started exploding again. For Apple, it would surely be if people stopped obsessing over it.
And for Amazon?
The company's Super Bowl ad teaser, released on Friday, offers a dire portent of disaster.
No, CEO Jeff Bezos doesn't decide to snowboard full time. It's worse.
Alexa loses her voice.
Suddenly, she can't communicate the weather in Austin, Texas, anymore.
Now, why Austin, speculators might wonder. Is it merely because that's where Amazon-owned Whole Foods is based? Or could it be a sign that HQ2 is heading to Texas?
I digress.
Here, Bezos is far too concerned that Alexa can't do her job.
There's little worse for a tech CEO than when a machine can't come to work and Bezos shows considerable acting prowess in channeling controlled concern.
What's to be done? One of his lieutenants says she has the replacements ready. Who might they be? Real human beings on the end of a phone, perhaps?
Cloned Justin Timberlakes? Or, some might speculate, a whole army of Bezos Mini-Me's?
How painful that we'll have to wait until February 4 to find out.
I asked Siri if she had any idea who will replace her sister-in-tech.
"I don't have an answer for that," she said, without even a hint of a sore throat.
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