The Amazon Web Services outage on Monday took down dozens of websites and online services. Ring was among them.
In an interview with Business Insider, Ring founder Jamie Siminoff described the day’s difficulties.
“Certainly it was a tough day,” Siminoff said. “You never want to disappoint customers. We call our customers neighbors.”
Siminoff said that he tried hard to be there for Ring customers: “My email’s on every box that we send out. I’m very out there,” he said.
Ring isn’t just a doorbell; it’s a home security system, which may have heightened customers’ concerns and the online backlash. “It’s like the beginning of a modern scary movie,” one X user posted. “I hope no one gets robbed right now,” another posted.
Amazon acquired Ring in 2018 for over $1 billion. Siminoff briefly left the company in 2023, before returning in April 2025. His new title is VP of product for Amazon, where he oversees related home security products: Ring, Amazon’s Blink security cameras, Key in-home delivery service, and the Sidewalk wireless network.
AWS is another subsidiary of Amazon. Siminoff pointed out his connection to the company.
“If you look at the history of AWS, I’d say it’s pretty stellar, but I guess shit does happen, as the bumper sticker says,” Siminoff said.
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The AWS outage affected a variety of Amazon businesses. Some shoppers were unable to order from Amazon’s digital storefront. Others were woken up by rogue Alexa alarms.
The outage also affected non-Amazon businesses that run on AWS cloud services. Some users couldn’t mobile order their Starbucks or access their Robinhood accounts. Others worried about losing their Wordle streaks.
The outage has since been resolved, and AWS services are operating normally. The issue appears to have originated from a Domain Name System error at AWS’s Northern Virginia data center
Since Siminoff has come back to the company, he’s brought Ring back to its crime-fighting roots. Ring’s security focus left some worried during the outage: customers posted online that they couldn’t disarm their alarms or receive detection notifications.
“We got through it,” said Siminoff, who is promoting his new book, “Ding Dong.” “I would like to think we did the best for our customers that we can through that, both Amazon as a whole, as well as Ring as a division.”
“I’ve just got to keep trucking along,” he said.
