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Amazon’s Alexa has 80,000 Apps—and No Runaway Hit

The advent of the smartphone triggered an app gold rush. So far that hasn’t happened with Alexa.

Video player cover image — How Jeff Bezos Became the King of E-Commerce

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March 11, 2019, 9:00 AM UTCCorrectedMarch 12, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

Kevin Deakin and his colleagues at his online trivia startup had just gotten their hands on an Echo smart speaker that Amazon.com Inc. was passing out to developers in 2016. They made it less than a block from the company’s Seattle headquarters before coming to a decision.

“We looked at this device and said, ‘We’ve got to be on here,’” Deakin recalls. “It doesn’t matter if we make any money.”