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Define success. Without a doubt iRobot was a category leader for a long time. They created the market but were they ever profitable? At this point it feels like

Define success. Without a doubt iRobot was a category leader for a long time. They created the market but were they ever profitable? At this point it feels like a company on life support that is getting their butts kicked by the Chinese who offer double the product for half the cost. Without a doubt though he created the category. Was the second company ever a success, all I could find is it being trade for parts over and over. This third company looks interesting but it’s also a flooded market at this point. So for me the guy never had a real success and is currently building in a market that has been for years flooded with products like his.

yurimo 1y ago
Rodney Brooks is widely recognized and celebrated roboticist, ran CSAIL for a while. iRobot as a company created a new market and managed to put a functional household robot out there, whether Chinese alternatives ate the share of it is largely irrelevant to his argument on humanoids, which I find to be completely reasonable.
- infecto 1y ago
  There is a wide gap between academic and entrepreneur/business operator though. He was one of three co founders of iRobot the company l, is not even credited at the inventor of it, and iRobot has largely been a one hit wonder. They created a category but the underlying product largely was unimproved until China started dominating. His other business was a failure and his third current is in a crowded marketplace. Humanoids are the minority in warehouse automation. Who is even talking about his argument on humanoids? What does that have to do with my comment. My response was on a comment praising his triple success in business and I am questioning that definition of success.
  - ghc 1y ago
    You say one hit wonder, but iRobot's PackBot and other gov-focused efforts were/are very profitable, though the company had to spin off the defense arm.
    - infecto 1y ago
      What are the other efforts? Packbot was sold off for $45mm for the time a company with a market cap of $1.6bn. Again the PackBot could be great but would you call a product that had low $ contracts to the government that eventually was sold for peanuts a wildly successful company? I don’t consider iRobot to be a wildly successful company.
      - ghc 1y ago
        Endeavor Robotics was recently sold for $382MM. So clearly it was actually valuable. Are you aware that from an investor perspective, creating a household brand and high IRR though IPO is considered a wild success? All companies eventually decline. By your metrics GE wasn't a wildly successful company either. Or AOL. Or Yahoo. Or Myspace. Every one of those companies eventually declined and your return would be poor if you held on to your investment over their entire arc.
        infecto 1y ago
        Are you aware you are picking the wrong numbers. $382 is post iRobot when endeavor sold to Flir. Why would you even use that number. PackBot sold for $45mm. That’s a decade worth of work and investment for $45mm. I think you might be narrating a bit too much and putting words into my mouth. I don’t know the IRR for iRobot as I was never part of the funding rounds while private or an insider while public. That said it was a stagnant public company that had a jump around Covid time which has come crashing back down. Maybe those folks like yourself, based on the way you speak, invested early in the 90s in iRobot and were part of that IPO. I am not attacking the man only a perspective that I am not sure investors would see him as a wildly successful entrepreneur.
ripe 1y ago
> the guy never had a real success iRobot has sold over fifty million Roombas to date. Packbots are also highly profitable and have saved many lives.
- infecto 1y ago
  That’s why I asked how do you measure success, they created the market but never were able to operationalize it or improve it from the initial iterations.
  - ghc 1y ago
    A decade of profitability as a public company seems pretty successful to me. Brooks was long gone by the time iRobot started its decline.
    - infecto 1y ago
      And brooks was one of three founders and not credited for the first iteration of Roomba. During his time the company barely broke even on and adjusted ebitda basis. His other company was a failure and this third is in a crowded marketplace. Again as I keep saying. My reply was to someone who said he had three wildly successful companies. Yes iRobot created a segment but I still struggle to classify it as a wild success.
majormajor 1y ago
"Were they ever profitable" is an easy enough thing to look up, why not just do that instead of use it as a rhetorical device? https://macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IRBT/irobot/gross-profit https://macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IRBT/irobot/gross-prof... From that, they had 13 straight years of profitable net income starting in 2009. Rough recently because they got eaten up by cheaper upstarts; happens to almost everyone eventually. But clearing several hundred million cumulative in net income over a decade+ (peaking 2018-2020, so they were consistently growing from 2009 to 2020 even) is far from "were they ever profitable" territory. They don't have pre-2009 there, but from some other googling it looks like they were profitable by when he left in 2008 after their 2005 IPO. So he was there from inception to IPO and millions-a-year-profitability, and then you're discounting that because 12 years after he left some companies in China had better copies. Building something for 15 years to IPO isn't some VC pump and dump scam, it's harder. If that's not success you have a ridiculous bar. "So for me the guy never had a real success" - get out of here, do your googling before making claims like that.
- deleted 1y ago
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- infecto 1y ago
  Sorry I hit a nerve, it’s easier to share an opinion without telling people to get out of here though shame on you. The adjusted ebitda numbers I was looking at either had it below or near zero hence I did not really consider them a financial success. He was one of 3 founders and another individual invented the first iteration of the roomba. I am not saying he is a failure but the person I was replying to stated he was “wildly successful” with three companies. I saw iRobot as a category creator but never capturing the market and no idea how you could say the other two are wildly successful can you share how? Otherwise get out of here.
- gizmo 1y ago
  Not every business loses 95% of their market cap in 3 years. Many companies bleed out slowly as they struggle to retain their market share in the face of new competition. This is normal. It's not normal for a business to just collapse out of nowhere. Did shareholders and investors collectively make money from the whole ordeal? Looking briefly at the numbers, it looks like they didn't. During the profitable years IRobot made $639 million (sum total) but they lost -$737 in the collapse that followed. No dividends were paid either during the good years. Shareholders were left holding the bag. Building a business from nothing to IPO is a real accomplishment and I won't diminish that. However, if a business collapses and incinerates more money than it has ever made during the sum of all profitable years calling it a "real success" is a bit of a stretch.

yurimo 1y ago

Rodney Brooks is widely recognized and celebrated roboticist, ran CSAIL for a while. iRobot as a company created a new market and managed to put a functional household robot out there, whether Chinese alternatives ate the share of it is largely irrelevant to his argument on humanoids, which I find to be completely reasonable.

infecto 1y ago
There is a wide gap between academic and entrepreneur/business operator though. He was one of three co founders of iRobot the company l, is not even credited at the inventor of it, and iRobot has largely been a one hit wonder. They created a category but the underlying product largely was unimproved until China started dominating. His other business was a failure and his third current is in a crowded marketplace. Humanoids are the minority in warehouse automation. Who is even talking about his argument on humanoids? What does that have to do with my comment. My response was on a comment praising his triple success in business and I am questioning that definition of success.
- ghc 1y ago
  You say one hit wonder, but iRobot's PackBot and other gov-focused efforts were/are very profitable, though the company had to spin off the defense arm.
  - infecto 1y ago
    What are the other efforts? Packbot was sold off for $45mm for the time a company with a market cap of $1.6bn. Again the PackBot could be great but would you call a product that had low $ contracts to the government that eventually was sold for peanuts a wildly successful company? I don’t consider iRobot to be a wildly successful company.
    - ghc 1y ago
      Endeavor Robotics was recently sold for $382MM. So clearly it was actually valuable. Are you aware that from an investor perspective, creating a household brand and high IRR though IPO is considered a wild success? All companies eventually decline. By your metrics GE wasn't a wildly successful company either. Or AOL. Or Yahoo. Or Myspace. Every one of those companies eventually declined and your return would be poor if you held on to your investment over their entire arc.
      - infecto 1y ago
        Are you aware you are picking the wrong numbers. $382 is post iRobot when endeavor sold to Flir. Why would you even use that number. PackBot sold for $45mm. That’s a decade worth of work and investment for $45mm. I think you might be narrating a bit too much and putting words into my mouth. I don’t know the IRR for iRobot as I was never part of the funding rounds while private or an insider while public. That said it was a stagnant public company that had a jump around Covid time which has come crashing back down. Maybe those folks like yourself, based on the way you speak, invested early in the 90s in iRobot and were part of that IPO. I am not attacking the man only a perspective that I am not sure investors would see him as a wildly successful entrepreneur.

ripe 1y ago

> the guy never had a real success iRobot has sold over fifty million Roombas to date. Packbots are also highly profitable and have saved many lives.

infecto 1y ago
That’s why I asked how do you measure success, they created the market but never were able to operationalize it or improve it from the initial iterations.
- ghc 1y ago
  A decade of profitability as a public company seems pretty successful to me. Brooks was long gone by the time iRobot started its decline.
  - infecto 1y ago
    And brooks was one of three founders and not credited for the first iteration of Roomba. During his time the company barely broke even on and adjusted ebitda basis. His other company was a failure and this third is in a crowded marketplace. Again as I keep saying. My reply was to someone who said he had three wildly successful companies. Yes iRobot created a segment but I still struggle to classify it as a wild success.

majormajor 1y ago

"Were they ever profitable" is an easy enough thing to look up, why not just do that instead of use it as a rhetorical device? https://macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IRBT/irobot/gross-profit https://macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IRBT/irobot/gross-prof... From that, they had 13 straight years of profitable net income starting in 2009. Rough recently because they got eaten up by cheaper upstarts; happens to almost everyone eventually. But clearing several hundred million cumulative in net income over a decade+ (peaking 2018-2020, so they were consistently growing from 2009 to 2020 even) is far from "were they ever profitable" territory. They don't have pre-2009 there, but from some other googling it looks like they were profitable by when he left in 2008 after their 2005 IPO. So he was there from inception to IPO and millions-a-year-profitability, and then you're discounting that because 12 years after he left some companies in China had better copies. Building something for 15 years to IPO isn't some VC pump and dump scam, it's harder. If that's not success you have a ridiculous bar. "So for me the guy never had a real success" - get out of here, do your googling before making claims like that.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
infecto 1y ago
Sorry I hit a nerve, it’s easier to share an opinion without telling people to get out of here though shame on you. The adjusted ebitda numbers I was looking at either had it below or near zero hence I did not really consider them a financial success. He was one of 3 founders and another individual invented the first iteration of the roomba. I am not saying he is a failure but the person I was replying to stated he was “wildly successful” with three companies. I saw iRobot as a category creator but never capturing the market and no idea how you could say the other two are wildly successful can you share how? Otherwise get out of here.
gizmo 1y ago
Not every business loses 95% of their market cap in 3 years. Many companies bleed out slowly as they struggle to retain their market share in the face of new competition. This is normal. It's not normal for a business to just collapse out of nowhere. Did shareholders and investors collectively make money from the whole ordeal? Looking briefly at the numbers, it looks like they didn't. During the profitable years IRobot made $639 million (sum total) but they lost -$737 in the collapse that followed. No dividends were paid either during the good years. Shareholders were left holding the bag. Building a business from nothing to IPO is a real accomplishment and I won't diminish that. However, if a business collapses and incinerates more money than it has ever made during the sum of all profitable years calling it a "real success" is a bit of a stretch.