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Amazon and iRobot call off their planned acquisition
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoI hope this new era of trust-busting grows at the same exponential rate Big Tech drooled over.
- thrillgore 3y agoI know the EU gets a lot of hate on HN, but its clear they're the last force on Earth trying to actively save it from the woes of unchecked capitalism.
- ErneX 3y agoThe 1st iRobot vacuum on my local Amazon top sellers list is at the 16 position, the previous spots are Chinese or other brands. I don’t really know why this deal was blocked, the competition seems to be doing pretty good.
- tiltowait 3y agoA common sentiment appears to be "Amazon (maybe Big Tech in general?) shouldn't be able to make any M&Rs ever again", as if every acquisition is anticompetitive.
- QuinnyPig 3y agoIndeed. Meanwhile here in the US no regulator had problems with Amazon buying One Medical and branching out into doctors offices.
- wyager 3y agoUnfortunately for the EU, there are still places in the world that are comfortable with success. Every time the EU tanks some local company, or prevents it from being viable in the first place, that productivity just goes to the US or China.
- raverbashing 3y agoExcept iRobot was an American company and the FTC was also evaluating the deal so? I suspect the problem here is a dominant retail player buying a big manufacturer
- wyager 3y agoEven more bizarre, then, that EU regulators can tank American deals
- madeofpalk 3y agoAmazon and iRobot also have EU-based companies, thus get jurisdiction.
- chucke1992 3y agoFTC is an incompetent agency whose sole goal is to tank each and every deal.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago> Every time the EU tanks some local company, or prevents it from being viable in the first place, that productivity just goes to the US or China. China, where the government promotes local monopolies and sets unreasonable hurdles to foreign competitors? That China?
- JohnFen 3y agoI agree. As a US citizen, I am getting increasingly envious of what's been happening there. We need more of it here.
- stewx 3y agoThe essence of capitalism is competition. Mega-mergers and acquisitions are antithetical to healthy capitalism since they stifle competition.
- PaulHoule 3y ago(To parody the email that I get from every startup that got bought by FAANG) “As a consumer I am proud, delighted and outright tickled pink that this acquisition has failed as having competition in the market will, in the long term, result in better products and lower prices” See https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ https://www.thebignewsletter.com/
- pwnna 3y agoThe progressive loss in consumer robotics company in the West to their Chinese counter parts has been disappointing. Much like drones, I suspect this is short sighted as the underlying technology eventually have national security concerns. Now maybe these companies are likely just mismanaged and the cost of North American engineering is too high? That said, it still seems like there is a structural problem here that very few hybrid software-hardware companies succeed.
- kredd 3y agoThe problem is, Chinese consumer tech is full of extremely competitive and cut-throat companies. Some countries don’t like how their government is giving a tons of subsidies for them to progress like crazy (see BYD in 2012 vs now), but they’re delivering results. Combined with their low cost of engineering, the prices in the products are also pretty low, so it’s a no-brained for an average person to buy something for double the price for half of the functionality, just because it was designed in US.
- Apocryphon 3y agoWe used to fund basic research in this country. Now we don't even give corporate handouts in strategic industries. (Okay we do, see CHIPS Act, but too little too late?)
- pwnna 3y agoYou're exactly right. I'm not asking for people to choose an inferior, pricier product. My thoughts is that China has the environment to have extreme competition which is leading to better product. This is distinctly not the case here. This is the structural problem that will eventually lead to a loss of competitive edge. Your call out to BYD is a good one, because it is conceivable that even western-made cars will be made non competitive in 10 years and it seems that we are sleeping through the news (or even encouraging it). I hope I'm wrong, but the road ahead is filled with challenge because the direction is fundamentally wrong, and it will take a lot of effort to reverse course, if that is even possible.
- 3y ago
- bearjaws 3y agoAdam Connover interviewed the chair of the FTC, and it was a pretty good pod cast episode. The key insight I took away was, the FTC doesn't want to approve M&A from large cap corporations, period. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4UkMad4JQk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4UkMad4JQk
- bequanna 3y agoHave their vacuum models improved? When I was in the market about an year ago, it seemed that Chinese robot vacuums were light years ahead. I have a few iRobot vacuums that are several years old and never get used due to ineffectiveness. It is easier to spend 5 minutes manually vacuuming vs letting the iRobot wander around randomly for an hour and still not clean well.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>it seemed that Chinese robot vacuums were light years ahead. They are. Xiaomi owned Roborock is years ahead of the big western competition (iRobot and Neato) in terms of cleaning chops and value for money. Privacy though, is another matter that never gets benchmarked, but there's also no guarantee yet that the lesser western brands will pinky promise to keep your data private and not sell it to advertisers for money or leave it in some insecure S3 bucket for hackers to steal because they outsourced the SW dev work to the cheapest body shop, which is the norm in SW development for consumer electronics. At least on most Roborock models you can root them and run them locally via Valetudo insted of their proprietary cloud, so you get the best of all worlds: cleaning, value, privacy.
- guepe 3y agoI have two (vacuum and mop) and I’m happy with them. Slow ? Yes. Who cares it gets done in the day while I work ! Effective: yes.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Rebelgecko 3y agoiRobot is catching up to their Chinese competitors in many ways, including privacy concerns. Just last year one of their contractors posted a picture taken by a vacuum of a woman going to the bathroom. In iRobot's (IMO weak) defense, the woman or someone in her household had opted into third party data sharing In practice, how is it to actually run Valetudo on a Roborock? I have one of the supported models but quickly noped out when I skimmed through the "short these jumpers on the PCB" part of the installation instructions
- paxys 3y agoI can't help but feel that a lot of these large companies are choosing not to fight regulatory agencies over acquisitions because after the recent tech correction the targets are now worth a lot less than what they bid for them (similar to Elon trying to get out of buying Twitter). Easier to pay the break-up fee and move on.
- encoderer 3y agoEurope, where the largest business is a luxury handbag company, has now essentially declared acquisitions illegal, and is eagerly regulating American tech companies after completely failing in developing their own tech sector.
- ravetcofx 3y agoMonopolization is generally bad. Smaller independent businesses foster healthier markets and competition. That's what the EU is regulating.
- dymk 3y agoThere is no company that has a monopoly on robot vacuum cleaners though, and it's unclear how Amazon would use their positions in other markets to unfairly leverage themselves in the robot vacuum market. How are the EU's actions here protective of the market/consumers?
- pyvpx 3y ago[flagged]
- dymk 3y agoThere's plenty of competition in this space, and there's no need to be snarky.
- pyvpx 3y agomy snark compensates for the absolute lack of depth of thought in your position. nothing personal — I am simply incredulous at your stance in the face of well…how data and capitalism works, historically.
- BlackjackCF 3y agoSeriously horrifying. If the acquisition went through, Amazon would know exactly what was going on outside AND inside your house since they also own Ring.
- paxys 3y agoI can't help but feel that a lot of these large companies are choosing not to fight regulatory agencies over acquisitions because after the recent tech correction the targets are now worth a lot less than what they bid for them (similar to Elon trying to get out of buying Twitter). Easier to pay the break-up fee and move on.
- ado__dev 3y agoTotally agree there. Why spend $1.4b when the company is worth maybe a quarter of that now?
- dheera 3y agoWhy don't they structure deals as a multiplier of VOO? "We will acquire you for 2 million shares of VOO" or something like that. If the only reason is that it's an unorthodox way of doing a deal, I say do it anyway and forge a way into the future of M&A.
- 1980phipsi 3y agoIt’s baffling they don’t do it.
- paxys 3y agoThis isn't totally uncommon. Companies just use their own shares instead of VOO.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- runako 3y agoVOO is up since the iRobot acquisition was announced, which would have resulted in the effective price increasing over time, the opposite of what they want. Nasdaq is ~ flat since then, which also would not capture the economic dynamic desired (some tech valuations have fallen). The Nasdaq Tech 100 does an even worse job at capturing the dynamic: it's up nearly 50% since the deal was announced. You'd have to use something a lot more specific, like a basket of specific stocks or some very small sub-index. But then a smaller basket could have a lot more volatility that may be endogenous to a small set of companies, and someone has to get paid for that volatility.
- CaptainZapp 3y ago> David Zapolsky, the Amazon general counsel, said: “Undue and disproportionate regulatory hurdles discourage entrepreneurs, who should be able to see acquisition as one path to success, and that hurts both consumers and competition – the very things that regulators say they’re trying to protect.” Are those people for real? Mr. Zapolsky may want to seek out a new career... In comedy.
- robertlagrant 3y agoHow so?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- spywaregorilla 3y agoSpouting garbage and getting away with it is far more tragic than comic.
- progbits 3y agoWar is peace. Freedom is slavery. Acquisition is competition.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- israrkhan 3y agoEU regulators would rather see a company go bankrupt than getting acquired at 3x market cap.
- tomtheelder 3y agoIs yet another company getting hoovered up by Amazon better for society than it going out of business? Honestly I don't know that's as obvious as you're making it sound. Hyper consolidation is arguably the biggest economic issue facing developed economies right now. IMO there's no valid reason to allow a company the size of Amazon to make acquisitions, and instead the conversation should be about urgently trying to break Amazon up.
- _ea1k 3y agoYes. It isn't just any company, it is basically the last of its kind based in the US. This is a direct benefit to Chinese competitors in the space and a direct detriment to American workers. The effect in Amazon is marginal at best. TBH, it looks like the worst possible outcome.
- yifanl 3y agoIf iRobot was really in a situation where it was acquisition goes through or "the CEO and a half of the employees will be laid off the day the news breaks out", then I can't imagine they were in an economically viable state to begin with, and it certainly shouldn't be the EU's job to fight said economic forces.
- pornel 3y agoBut that's not a real value created by the company, but value that would be extracted by self-dealing placement of their products on Amazon. I'm quite happy that EU is siding with the consumers, not the shareholders.
- chucke1992 3y agoWell EU prefers giving subsidies to 100 year old companies at the expense of everything else.
- Solvency 3y agoRoombas are a joke. My house is one floor. Engineered flat hardwood. A few low pile flag rugs. The best model Roomba just EATS them on the corners, dragging them around the room, getting stuck and causing chaos. It's 2024. We all don't live in carpeted 70s.
- cheriot 3y agoDid Amazon ever explain why they even wanted this acquisition? I don't think iRobot has tech they need for wear house automation. Is it about owning every home device? Maybe they'll turn the vacuum into a security robot to integrate with Ring /s
- _ea1k 3y agoI'd guess that they saw value in Alexa/Echo/Ring integration. It makes a lot of sense, given their other moves in home automation.
- esel2k 3y agoSo after neato announced bankruptcy now iRobot will? That leaves the market all for china?
- nerdjon 3y agoI have some conflicting feelings on this, the CEO stepping down and the layoffs as soon as this was announced makes it seem like this was/is a company on the verge of shutdown or at least having serious problems. At what point should an acquisition be allowed on the sake of something being able to continue to exist and possibly save jobs? Sure there would have almost guaranteed be job cuts with the acquisition due to redundancy, but would it have been the same amount? However on the flip side, it feels like iRobot has been stagnating for years and entering some weird categories. I still fail to see why they entered the air purifier market and them selling a stick vacuum next to their iRobot is sure one way to say "our expensive robot doesn't do everything we claim it does". I finally ditched my iRobot for a Roborock a couple months ago and it's been amazing. It is shocking how much better it is, when it was in the middle of a clean and I could tell it to go start a different clean and it just did it? It didn't complain or anything, I shouldn't be surprised by this but after the experience with iRobot feeling like it stands in my way every time this felt like magic. It genuinely makes me sad to see iRobot not be what they used to be, it feels like they got complacent with Roomba.
- k8sToGo 3y agoThe company can still be acquired to save jobs. Just not by Amazon.
- nerdjon 3y agoThat's valid, but then requires asking who. If the company is on the verge of closing, clearly there is something wrong with the business model. So for it to actually save jobs they have to first have the 1.7 billion that Amazon was going to pay and then have enough capital and a business reason that makes the acquisition make sense. There are not many companies like that out there, particularly for a company like iRobot. There was synergy between iRobot and Amazon. I am not advocating for a monopoly, but clearly another company wasn't stepping up to take amazon's place.
- _ea1k 3y ago> That's valid, but then requires asking who. Neato! Oh wait, they shut down. Google! Maybe, but would the EU see that any differently anyway? Yeah, there's not really a long list here. Maybe one of the non-US home automation companies might make sense, but they'd likely just put it on a glidepath to shutdown.
- latchkey 3y agoCEO and founder message: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7157729527916318720/ https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7157729...
- cdme 3y agoLess consolidation is good. Layoffs suck.
- whatever1 3y agoDoes irobot get compensated for this failed deal?
- bitsage 3y agoThere’s apparently a $94 million breakup fee
- kklisura 3y agoTo me this all seems warranted. Please read the European Commission report [1]: > On 6 July 2023, the Commission opened an in-depth investigation to assess if Amazon's acquisition of iRobot may > (i) restrict competition in the market for the manufacturing and supply of RVCs; and > (ii) allow Amazon to strengthen its position in the market for online marketplace services to third-party sellers (and related advertising services) and/or other data-related markets. > As a result of this in-depth investigation, the Commission is concerned that Amazon may restrict competition in the European Economic Area (‘EEA')-wide and/or national markets for RVCs, by hampering rival RVC suppliers' ability to effectively compete. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_5990 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...
- JoshGlazebrook 3y agoiRobot and their Roomba product line is riding on their namesake only. Roborock and other competitors are miles ahead of them when it comes to technology. It took a top of the line Roomba from 2021 about 4 hours to fully map my downstairs. Meanwhile the top of the line Roborock from 2022 did it in 15 minutes with its Lidar. And this is just one example. My roborock literally mops, cleans and dries its own mop, refills itself, empties itself, I can two way video call with the damn thing, it's just insane. iRobot has not innovated their products in any meaningful way in over a decade.
- caturopath 3y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-robot-vacuum/#why-we-dont-currently-recommend-vacuums-from-irobot https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-robot-vacuum...
- imp0cat 3y agoThey have some valid points. But then again, they make some weird claims further down like: It’s normal for a robot to not re-dock from time to time. No, it's not.
- kccqzy 3y agoI read an interview of the founder of roborock a long time ago and it was clear at that time that he had so much attention to detail that the product turned out to be superior. These days roborock behaves like it has definitely "solved" the robot vacuum problem and has transitioned to researching hardware for self-driving cars. I cannot yet decide if that's a brilliant strategy or a monumental waste of money that will hinder their continued development of robot vacuums.
- bagavi 3y agohttps://maticrobots.com/ https://maticrobots.com/ This company is doing the reverse, putting self driving tech in vacuum bot...
- 3y ago
- unboxingelf 3y agohttps://archive.is/lrr0Z https://archive.is/lrr0Z
- epa 3y agoGovernments giving large companies a bigger moat..
- Animats 3y agoAnother Rod Brooks company. * Lucid - bankrupt. Nobody really needed another LISP startup. * Rethink Robotics - bankrupt. Their "cobots" were not very useful. * iRobot - in trouble. Amazon and iRobot had some integration. "Alexa, tell Roomba to vacuum in front of the counter", says the iRobot site. Did that actually work? It made more sense for Amazon, giving Amazon a mobile spy in everyone's house. Amazon's last attempt at that, their indoor drone, never shipped.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2jFN_QEcS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2jFN_QEcS4
- lispm 3y ago> Lucid - bankrupt. Nobody really needed another LISP startup. I would think Lucid was quite successful with their Lisp. A bunch of companies based their Lisp on Lucid CL (IBM, SUN, DEC, HP, ...).
- imp0cat 3y agoThe Roomba integration works quite well, even with their old models.
- dylan604 3y agoThat indoor drone was one of those WTF moments for me. I envisioned one of those meetings with nothing but sycophants and nobody with a dissenting opinion where the most ludicrous pitch was green lit.
- mplewis 3y agoI use "Alexa, tell Roomba to clean the bathroom" on a regular basis, and it does a great job. This is coming from a long-time iRobot customer who is increasingly dissatisfied with other aspects of their product.
- robotresearcher 3y agoiRobot is more than 30 years old. It has sold more robots than anybody else in history. It was a big success for a long time, and made its founders and backers rich. I don't think their stagnation can be blamed on Brooks. Companies come and go.
- fhub 3y agoRoborock seems to be eating iRobot's lunch. Which I find fascinating as the now ex-CEO of iRobot is was so cocky about avoiding using lasers (LIDAR) for navigation and sticking to cameras only (which had a real privacy issue). See this interview with Lex Fridman https://youtu.be/1d9Dj9dT_pw?si=j8CbM7GgRMm6Mu0m&t=1362 https://youtu.be/1d9Dj9dT_pw?si=j8CbM7GgRMm6Mu0m&t=1362. Lex pushes him on LIDAR and he doubles down on camera only. "Vision is the future, I can say that without reservation"
- dylan604 3y agoWhat kind of safety concerns are there around the use of lasers around pets/children? I don't think members of either of those groups understand the "Don't look into laser with remaining eye" stickers.
- fhub 3y agoThe LIDAR units used by these robot vacuums aren't powerful enough to damage cat/children's eyes. I trust that they wouldn't be on the market if they were.
- tuyguntn 3y agoI don't trust any corporation in any matter: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/3m-says-earplug-litigation-settlement-on-track-to-exceed-98-participation-threshold-it-agreed-to-8a0672a8 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/3m-says-earplug-litigation...
- fhub 3y agoDo you eat any food made by corporations? Or grown by any corporations? Both lasers and food are regulated in the USA by the FDA AFAIK.
- dylan604 3y agoYour blind faith in "just because a product is available means it is safe" makes me wonder if you're familiar with the concept of a recall. Across all industries, companies have done something to the point that it is in the public's interest to remove that item from the market. There are so so many e.coli cases, listeria cases haunting the ice cream maker of my childhood to the point i never buy their brand now, and so many other food products that have been recalled for various reasons. I kind of wished I lived in your world that exists in your mind.
- saos 3y agoAmazon really cutting costs now.
- waterheater 3y agoI worked at iRobot some years back. I'll tell you exactly why iRobot is struggling: iRobot, at its core, built robots. Does that seem contradictory? Consider that their innovations, what they're known for, lies in robotic morphology. iRobot's Cool Stuff Museum in their HQ has some groundbreaking robots which still are awesome (like a ocean buoy robot powered by the waves). They cut their teeth doing research grants and developing military robots. Their ethos was rooted in service; when 9/11 happened, they packed up a prototype robot and drove to Ground Zero to use that robot to search for survivors in the rubble. Still, their military robots were controlled by humans, and the original Roombas turned at random angles to fully clean a room. Around 8 years ago, iRobot spun off their military and commercial robot divisions into independent companies (Endeavor Robotics and Ava Robotics, respectively; Endeavor was eventually acquired by FLIR) to focus exclusively on the consumer market. The consumer robotics industry was shifting, so iRobot needed to change. They bought Evolution Robotics to acquire computer vision IP and started doing research in that area. Advanced software capabilities were now important, so they shipped vSLAM (monocular SLAM representing state using pose graphs; they've published quite a few papers on this), persistent mapping, automatic room segmentation, and much more. They kept researching new consumer robots, including a home security robot which didn't make it out of the lab. The thing is, consumer robots will ALWAYS be a luxury item. Nobody NEEDS a Roomba, and the iRobot folks understood that reality. So, iRobot leaned into that and worked to make the Roomba the premium option: a refined industrial design language with their main products appealed better to the high-end market, and they released an autoevac Roomba. I'm guessing that their primary market segment saturated, so they figured they'd release new physical products, but that puts them in direct competition with Dyson (who utterly failed to produce a good robot vacuum cleaner, mind you), so good luck there. I don't believe iRobot ever resorted to selling their customer data, which I'm sure Chinese robotics companies regularly do to increase revenue. I also think iRobot's failure to launch their robot lawnmower really hurt them, probably hurting morale than anything else. Tons of people worked on that project, and the technology stack was genuinely impressive for seven years ago (using UWB beacons placed in the yard for localization and mapping). UWB was still an emerging technology in 2017 (still a few years before AirTags released). It makes me sad they couldn't ship it in the US, since the technology was better than virtually all other robot lawnmowers on the market. iRobot manufactures their robots in China, but if I remember correctly, that's exclusively because the Chinese restrict exports on key electrical components like resistors. There was a desire to onshore manufacturing, but because the Chinese cornered the market, it was basically impossible to make the costs work out. The bottom line is, the robot vacuum market is basically a solved problem, and there's a very good reason that floor cleaning robots continue to be the only viable consumer robot product. I have fond memories of those good and kind iRoboteers. I wish iRobot all the best as they move forward and try to find a well-constrained everyday problem which can be solved by a low-cost robot.
- kromenak 3y agoI got a Roomba to replace an Eufy, assuming it’d be better because it was more expensive. Well, it was not! It had similar effectiveness to the Eufy, but lacked manual controls. It also refused to go places the Eufy would (like a dark carpet) and constantly tried to return home after only a cursory clean. That kind of turned me off on Roomba. Not saying this is why they might be having trouble, but it reflects my experience and feelings toward them.
- happyopossum 3y ago> Our in-depth investigation preliminarily showed that the acquisition of iRobot would have enabled Amazon to foreclose iRobot’s rivals by restricting or degrading access to the Amazon Stores Seems like the EC just declared that Amazon is no longer allowed to make any acquisitions of companies that make products. At the very least they left a pretty high bar for Amazon to get over for any future acquisitions.
- hmottestad 3y agoI hope iRobot manages to survive. I have one of their J9 robots with a camera and object detection. It’s amazing how it can vacuum our toy-riddled floor. I’m very weary of buying a robot vacuum with a camera from a Chinese company. I don’t fully trust iRobot, but I trust them much more than I trust Chinese brands. I also couldn’t see myself going back to a robot vacuum without a camera. After I got kids our old Neato vacuum robot got very little use since it always required that everything was picked up off the floor. That being said I’m quite frustrated by my new J9. It’s supposed to have a feature called SmartScrub, but it’s not in the app. The robot is also supposed to drive back to the base to refill its water tank, but it hasn’t done that a single time since we bought it a month ago. The combination of vacuuming and mopping is also a bit unfortunate since it sucks up a lot of humid air when passing over areas that it’s already mopped, causing a buildup of wet-ish dirt in the air duct.
- xyst 3y agoPersonally my experience with iRobot has not been smooth. I have a dog that sheds a shit ton of fur. The robot would get clogged frequently. A few parts would just stop working. Went through 2 replacements before calling it quits. Switched to Roborock and haven’t looked back. Going on 1 yr now.
- treprinum 3y agoHow is a company 10,000 miles away from you going to hurt you compared to a local one that has access to all government services (and vice versa)? I'd rather prefer Chinese or Russian companies to spy on me because what are they going to do with it that would matter? Will I get more spam in Mandarin/Cyrillic I can't decipher anyway?
- elefanten 3y agoThis is completely ignorant of how influence works and how espionage assets are developed. A foreign entity would have no obstructions to using collected information as ruthlessly as possible, whereas even a corrupt/politically-motivated/unrestrained domestic entity would have to weigh the comparatively massive risk of being implicated or exposed. “what are they going to do with it?” If you have valuable information or responsibilities, that could be motivation enough for foreign agents to seek leverage. If you don’t, then it’s equally fantastic to think the CIA gives a shit about you for some reason.
- bagavi 3y agohttps://maticrobots.com/ https://maticrobots.com/ Has anyone heard about them? It apparently offers complete privacy by doing all computes on device.
- spangry 3y agoMaybe an opportunity for OpenAI to acquire a robot vacuum company on the cheap. Seems like an easy way to gain access to tonnes of physical sensor and movement data to integrate into a giant multimodal model.
- lulznews 3y agoAll these American companies do is slap a logo on Chinese products and mark up by 3-10x. Amazon of all places should know this.
- Tempest1981 3y agoDo we know what Amazon had planned for iRobot? Might it have included the same significant layoffs, or OEMing cheaper Chinese hardware while keeping the brand?
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- imadierich 3y ago[dead]