Zehr, Gregg

2016 Distinguished Alumni Award

For significant contributions to consumer electronics, helping to change the way people access information every day

Gregg Zehr is the President of Amazon Lab126. In September 2004, Gregg formed a small team in a start-up environment that became Lab126. He led the team that researched and developed the first Kindle e-reader over the course of three years until its launch in 2007. Since then, he has led the company through massive growth; the product line has expanded beyond e-readers to Fire tablets, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and more.

Gregg has been in the computer hardware industry since 1977. After working as a hardware design engineer and manager at several smaller companies, Gregg joined Apple. He worked there for nine years. He eventually became VP of PowerBook Engineering, where he managed the design group responsible for all new laptop products. Gregg continued his career by joining a startup to run engineering at VA Linux, combining open source and low cost servers. Subsequently, he joined Palm as VP of Hardware, where he managed the development team that invented Tungsten and Zire handheld products.

In 2011, he received the Innovation Award for Consumer Products from The Economist. He has also provided an oral history to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View about his work in Silicon Valley. He currently holds 15 patents.