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I 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 ve

• k8sToGo 3y ago
  The company can still be acquired to save jobs. Just not by Amazon.
  • nerdjon 3y ago
    That'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.
      • nerdjon 3y ago
        Google likely wouldn't be allowed either, I mean they may not operate a store like Amazon but I highly doubt the idea of searching "robot vacuum" and iRobot always being the top or in a special box would fly. I mean there is Microsoft who would have the money but it just doesn't really fit into anything they are doing. Dyson? Sony? But yeah a non US company also opens up other questions that may block it.
      • mlazos 3y ago
        I feel like google acquired a ton of robotics companies and then completely failed at productizing any of them. They’ve sold them off now I think so I don’t think this fits with anything they’re doing.
        • _ea1k 3y ago
          Exactly, the closest thing with Google is probably Nest. It'd make some sense, but I'm not sure if making sense is considered a plus at Google. :)
    • CobrastanJorji 3y ago
      Is this a thing that needs fixing, though? Isn't part of the goal of capitalism to let the different business models fight with the idea that the best ones win and everybody else fails and shuts down? Closing when something is wrong with your business model is the goal, not something to be avoided.
      • nerdjon 3y ago
        There is still the technology, the people. While you're not wrong, just because the model doesn't work doesn't mean there isn't still value there. If you are presented with the choice to shutdown a company or have it live on in another company saving some jobs. I would think the second is the better option. It is possible that the only reason the business model doesn't make sense is not having a diverse enough of a catalog so research in a specific thing can be justified by multiple products.
• stackskipton 3y ago
  >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? IMO, probably never. I think this would open too many shenanigans of running a possible acquisition into the ground or attempt to lobby whatever government agency would regulate this. At some point, to make rules easy to enforce, you have to absorb some collateral damage.
  • thatsjustwrong 3y ago
    US antitrust law has a failing company doctrine. If you can show that absent the merger, the company would almost certainly fail, and no other likely purchaser exists, then you have the right to buy it regardless of any competitive concerns.
    • i_am_jl 3y ago
      I was really hoping this was a novelty account that just went around HN threads, calling out misinformation.
      • Nullabillity 3y ago
        Did we read the same post? "The US implements X" doesn't counter "X is a terrible idea" at all.
        • maleldil 3y ago
          I think they were talking about parent's name, thatsjustwrong, and how perfect it would be for a fact checking novelty account.
    • edgyquant 3y ago
      That sounds terrible and should change ASAP
• deleted 3y ago
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• ankitml 3y ago
  My roomba was cleaning much better 4 years ago than last 2 years, their app was slick 4 years ago and clunky in last 2 years. Random Product innovations degraded the core product. They did get complacent.
  • imp0cat 3y ago
    Or maybe the wheels are worn and slipping. Before you junk it, put new rubber on it. Mine was completely transformed.
• bane 3y ago
  If you are an acquirer, and you suspect that the company you are planning to acquire is likely to go under, it can often be cheaper to wait for that event then buy up IP, and hire as many staff as you can for continuity. For example, see Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable space station tech and then Sierra Space's tech. I don't have any inside knowledge, but I'd imagine the path Sierra is on is likely one similar to the above strategy.
• paxys 3y ago
  The fall of Roomba shows that capitalism is working exactly as intended. The company got complacent and stopped innovating. Their products stagnated, quality decreased and prices kept going up. Meanwhile competitors brought better products to the market. Roomba's market share started reflecting that reality. What happens if they get taken over by Amazon? Investors get a big exit, and employees hold on to their jobs for a bit longer (before the inevitable layoff). Amazon then uses its massive retail power to push an inferior product and edge out the smaller companies doing better work and competing on merit, leaving the space worse for everyone.
  • Andrex 3y ago
    > The fall of Roomba shows that capitalism is working exactly as intended. Only if your definition of capitalism includes a robust antitrust component (which mine does, but I know I differ from the mean here).
  • sirspacey 3y ago
    Roomba strikes me as having a very similar challenge to many hardware companies: 1. Prove you can do something amazing 2. Raise a bunch of capital to scale it, betting on future revenue 3. Deliver! Great product, stellar growth, soaring revenue, re-invest in product 4. Flood of copycat competitors, drives up acquisition costs, eliminates higher price point, revenue tanks 5. Pivot. Try to sell another story, build the start of another product leap, loose traction in a new way, pivot. 6. Seek an acquisition before the music ends 7. FTC In other words, product development (esp. app + hardware) is expensive, difficult, and constantly changing. We don’t have a capitalist system competing on product merit but acquisition arbitrage. In almost all cases the inferior product wins.
• fooey 3y ago
  The problem with allowing an acquisition to proceed just to save the company being acquired from failing is you end up with deals being structured to intentionally to cause harm if the deal collapses Look at what Kroger is doing with Albertson's for an example. If that merger fails, it's very likely Albertson's will go bankrupt because the shareholders looted the company of all their assets to ensure it can only survive if it's acquired https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/03/albertsons-special-dividend-owners/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/03/albertson...
  • lotsofpulp 3y ago
    How do shareholders loot a company? They own the company, which means they get to decide what to do with the company's assets.
    • o11c 3y ago
      Believe it or not, some people think "the purpose of a business is to produce useful things". Crazy, right?
      • deleted 3y ago
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      • johngladtj 3y ago
        Providing shareholder value is the useful thing they are supposed to produce. Anything else is a side effect
      • Phiwise_ 3y ago
        I agree. It's crazy that someone who didn't put up the skin to acquire the business thinks they should get to run it anyway.
      • cortesoft 3y ago
        Yeah, and some people believe the earth is flat. If we wanted a society where the purpose of a business is to produce useful things, then we should not have the rules set up like they are. You can't create an entire system of rules and regulations that set it up so the incentives are all aligned for companies to exist to make money, and then be surprised when those incentives work.
• mft_ 3y ago
  Honestly, I’m not sure about “not what they used to be”: I don’t think Roombas have ever been very good. The early ones were noteworthy for being novel, but (IMO as an early adopter) weren’t very good at cleaning. About ten years later I experienced someone else’s (then) modern Roomba, and it was still essentially the same crappy product, randomly banging into walls and struggling with carpet edges. When the Roborock appeared with LIDAR, it was like the future in comparison, and frankly what Roomba should have already delivered years before. When an established company with a big market share and opportunity for a technology lead is so out-innovated, it suggests that something is fundamentally rotten.
  • mynameisvlad 3y ago
    > Roborock appeared with LIDAR LIDAR is indeed a game changer, but Roborock was far from the first manufacturer to use it in botvacs. The first Roborock with LIDAR was released in 2019 and I remember getting a Neato botvac with LIDAR in the early 2010s.
    • mft_ 3y ago
      Sure; apologies for not providing a comprehensive history of the space - I was just speaking from my (limited) experience.
    • JoshTriplett 3y ago
      Has anyone innovated in the direction of privacy? "This is not a connected device, it does not talk to the cloud, there are no privacy considerations because we don't receive any of your data and never will".
      • cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
        Probably not, because that is a niche interest. We both know that. I’m not salty about it. But come on, get off the soapbox.
        • _dark_matter_ 3y ago
• nyjah 3y ago
  I have the same experience. I bought the most expensive iRobot and that thing sucks. You can’t irobotitfy your house enough for it to just run. I bought a Roborock s6 and it’s amazing. Immediately got one for my mom and she’s been raving about it for years already.
  • prepend 3y ago
    I did the same thing and it broke 1 month after the 1 year warranty expired. A cryptic error that means buying a new brain for it. Ridiculous that a $800 robot breaks. Bought two sharks for $300 each. Not quite as good, but so much cheaper. And doesn’t require bags.
  • blagie 3y ago
    FYI: Cheap Roombas seem better than expensive ones. I have a random one which bangs around the house for a long time, and the house ends up clean. Push a button, come back an hour later, and you're done. I like the simplicity.
    • nyjah 3y ago
      I agree with this that they are better, but actually before the expensive roomba I had a cheap roomba and it worked terribly. Insisted on shoving itself right under the perfect height furniture. My house is pretty basic. But my brother had similar roomba and I know he had better luck than me, but now has a shark.
    • faeriechangling 3y ago
      I had one and it got trapped and strangled itself regularly and ran over things and was totally useless. I pretty much wouldn't recommend those basic robot vacuums.
      • blagie 3y ago
        The "run over things" is almost a feature for me. I run the Roomba a few times a week, and I need to tidy up before. Mess never builds up. It means I keep my floors clean! The "gets stuck under furniture" is a bug. However, I don't have much furniture at Roomba height. If I did, it'd make the device useless.
• seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I think Chinese competitors just undercut them too much and provide quality that is almost as good, and they are able to innovate faster to boot.
  • Mistletoe 3y ago
    There’s no moat on robot vacuums, they just had their initial brand recognition. Lots of companies should pay attention… I love my Roomba, it’s been truly a life-changing invention for me and my go-to mental construct for how robots can improve our lives and how good design can be very simple yet effective. But I probably bought it used on eBay and I continue to buy batteries every 5-10 years for it on eBay when it needs a new one.
  • nytesky 3y ago
    Have Chinese based electronics improved in the last decade. I remember the concerns about devices catching fire (hoverboards) and lead in vinyl and other materials (I remember an Amazon kids pencil bag that was recalled two years ago) For a household product that runs autonomously throughout my house and interacts with many surfaces, and with small kids in the house, I want a reputable supplier, not just whiz bang features and a slick app. Maybe Roborock is that, but there is so much opacity when dealing with Chinese companies even in cases where the govt is not involved.
    • seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Obviously, but there are some serious contenders here who are actually working on a reliable brand. But if you just buy a random generic bot...ya...it probably isn't going to work out well.
    • dghlsakjg 3y ago
      Ignoring political concerns (which is a big problem); Chinese manufacturers make great products. DJI, huawei and insta360 are three off the top of my head that are perfectly capable of going up against global brands. Additionally, almost every high quality brand has manufacturing in China; Apple, Microsoft, Nikon, Canon, Dyson, the list goes on. This is more a problem of “you get what you pay for”. No name hoverboards were a real problem because designing a compact, high power draw, lithium powered device is hard to do. Segway, ninebot, etc all make great ‘hoverboard’ like products.
• madeofpalk 3y ago
  What if allowing Amazon to purchase iRobot harms the market and shuts down three other competing companies, sending many more people out of a job. Oh, and iRobot still lays of people because they can share a bunch of functions with Amazon now.
  • cowsandmilk 3y ago
    What Amazon acquisitions have put other companies out of business? Amazon bought Eero, yet I haven’t seen other WiFi router companies go out of business. Amazon bought Ring, then a competitor was so successful that Amazon bought Blink. This notion that Amazon’s acquisition would put competitors out of business seems to be a weird dream. Especially when it is known an easier path to “unfairly compete” would be to just create an Amazon-labeled robotic vacuum and put that on the market.
• hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > 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. I'm not saying those two sentences are totally incompatible, but Roborock's home page at https://us.roborock.com/ https://us.roborock.com/ is basically half divided between "Robot Vacuums" and "Cordless Vacuum Cleaners"
• ulfw 3y ago
  Who says the layoffs wouldn't have happened with the Amazon acquisition? Who says the CEO still had a role to play as Amazon VP and wouldn't have left soon after closing anyway? These acquisitions tend to come with huge layoffs anyway.
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• TehCorwiz 3y ago
  The phrase you're looking for is "Too big to fail". We tried that, payed the credit cards of a lot of bankers while a lot of people lost their homes. Make no mistake, people losing their jobs is bad, but saving a bad company doesn't make it better. Everything dies, we should let companies die too.
  • jen20 3y ago
    I wonder if Roombas are wide spread enough to cause outrage if they stopped working because the company went out of business?
    • mark_story 3y ago
      Isn't this an implicit risk anyone who purchases a 'smart' device takes? Every company will eventually discontinue their cloud service for a product line when it suits their needs. We have seen this countless times in technology and that anyone assumes that cycle will repeat with all these devices is fooling themselves.
      • jen20 3y ago
        For those who understand there even is a cloud service, yes. My guess is that roombas are sufficiently common that most purchasers have no idea.
  • adastra22 3y ago
    This isn't a too big to fail situation. Amazon wanted to buy iRobot. iRobot wanted the acquisition to go through. The government stepped in and blocked the acquisition on the grounds that they'd rather Amazon and iRobot remained competitors. But what actually happens now is that iRobot lays off its core staff in a desperate attempt to avoid insolvency. The regulators could wish all they want that iRoomba stay a competitive player in this space, but businesses don't run on wishes and rainbows.
    • ZainRiz 3y ago
• hakdbha 3y ago
  [dead]
• FwarkALark 3y ago
  > At what point should an acquisition be allowed on the sake of something being able to continue to exist and possibly save jobs? Never? The entire point of private companies is that they take risk on themselves. If we have to bail them out we might as well just nationalize them. See: the entire american airline industry.
• schnitzelstoat 3y ago
  I got a Roborock because it was cheaper, but it's been amazing. It seems Roomba was just selling on it's brand name.