“Astro is our first consumer robot. It’s not going to be our last.”

Ken Washington, the executive in charge of Amazon’s first home robot, speaks confidently about the future despite mixed reviews and early skepticism about Astro’s usefulness. A nuclear engineer by training, Washington was chief technology officer at Ford Motor Co., overseeing initiatives including autonomous vehicles, before joining Amazon as VP of consumer robotics last year.

He sat down with us at Amazon re:MARS in Las Vegas.