Picture created utilizing ChatGPT. | Credit score: The Robotic Report
Whereas many in robotics noticed this end result coming, iRobot submitting Chapter 11 chapter has nonetheless despatched shockwaves by means of the trade. Based in 1990, iRobot is an iconic model and a real class creator. It has outlined shopper robotics for the reason that launch of the primary Roomba robotic vacuum in September 2002.
The response has been deeply polarized. Some individuals level to tariffs and regulatory intervention that led to the collapse of the proposed Amazon acquisition because the decisive blow. Others argue that longer-running points performed a bigger position, together with slowing innovation, structural challenges round scale and manufacturing, monetary selections, and intensifying world competitors.
No matter the place duty in the end lies, iRobot’s resolution to enter Chapter 11 and switch management to its Chinese language contract producer marks a sobering second for the robotics trade. In current days, we’ve heard reactions from throughout the ecosystem, together with former iRobot co-founders Colin Angle and Helen Greiner; co-founder Rodney Brooks has not commented publicly.
We’ve compiled a small sampling of responses from robotics leaders, engineers, and executives. Examine your social media platform of alternative for rather more reactions. Some posts learn as a postmortem of a pioneering firm, whereas others function hard-earned warnings for anybody making an attempt to scale robots in as we speak’s market.
What’s your response to iRobot’s Chapter 11 submitting? Share your perspective within the feedback.
Editor’s notice: These feedback had been taken from social media platforms and haven’t been edited.
Colin Angle, CEO of Acquainted Machines & Magic; co-founder and former CEO, iRobot
In the present day is a tough day. iRobot has filed for chapter.
For greater than 35 years, terribly proficient individuals poured their creativity, intelligence, and coronary heart into constructing one thing completely new: shopper robotics. Collectively, we introduced robots into thousands and thousands of properties and helped outline what this trade might change into.
I’m profoundly grateful to each buyer, engineer, designer, operator, companion, and chief who made that potential. What you constructed mattered—and it nonetheless does.
I stepped down in early 2024, however that doesn’t make as we speak any much less painful.
What provides me pause is that this: innovation doesn’t fail solely when concepts are flawed—it could possibly fail when the trail to scale is eliminated. When firms that create classes are denied viable methods to develop, everybody pays the value: shoppers, workers, and the broader innovation financial system.
Regardless of this information, I stay hopeful. Robotics and AI are coming into a brand new period, and the concepts, applied sciences, and other people behind iRobot—and others prefer it—will proceed to form what comes subsequent.
My hope is that moments like this pressure a severe dialog—not nearly firms, however about how we, as a rustic, assist innovation at scale.
For these constructing or investing within the subsequent technology of know-how: what classes ought to we be taking from this second—and the way can we keep away from repeating it?
Helen Greiner, co-founder and former chairman and president, iRobot
What went flawed with iRobot:
Regulatory overreach – Lina Khan, EU, stopping Amazon acquisition.
Tariffs – China, now Vietnam. Manufacturing extremely advanced, low value shopper items within the USA is unimaginable, sorry we might have cherished to have finished it.
Chinese language innovation – low-cost LiDAR sensor
Taking up debt – loopy. Minimize prices, debt simply delays motion compounding issues
Inventory purchase backs – monetary video games for brief time period value will increase, use $ for innovation or diversification
Worst end result is Chinese language possession of iRobot for U.S. lead in robots. In a sane world, U.S. gov would purchase the iRobot inventory, make debt long run, and preserve the U.S. forward in a promote it constructed. iRobot does over $500M in gross sales, numbers that present robotic firms being hyped would love.
Ira Renfrew, co-founder and chief individuals & product officer, Acquainted Machines & Magic (beforehand labored 6.5 years at iRobot)
I’m deeply saddened this morning to see the information of iRobot’s chapter. I owe my sensible schooling in robotics and among the finest occasions of my profession to the corporate, which was each the pioneering chief in shopper robotics and an lively supporter of the robotics ecosystem in Boston and past.
I’ll at all times bear in mind the stranger who, noticing my iRobot jacket, turned to me and mentioned, “Your merchandise have modified my life!” So lots of my colleagues felt the identical method about working at iRobot. Thanks to Colin Angle, Rodney Brooks, and Helen Greiner, plus so many others, for Altering The World. We are able to all be happy with that legacy as we go ahead.
Bob Little, chief of robotics technique, Novanta
What are the teachings discovered from the iRobot chapter? iRobot didn’t fail in a single day. It took many years to get right here — which makes the teachings price being attentive to.
Being a public firm didn’t assist
Quick-term investor stress outweighed long-term product focus. Over its life, iRobot spent $400M+ on inventory buybacks, capital that would have gone into engineering, manufacturing, and product development. Robotics isn’t a quarterly enterprise.
Patents purchased time, not security
As opponents iterated quicker, iRobot relied too closely on historic benefits as an alternative of steady innovation.
Engineering was too lean
Treating engineering as a price relatively than an funding slowed iteration and made restoration tough as soon as product gaps appeared.
Distance from manufacturing mattered
Robotics improves quickest when engineering and manufacturing are tightly linked. Heavy reliance on abroad manufacturing weakened that suggestions loop and slowed product cadence.
The Amazon deal turned a crutch
iRobot ought to by no means have relied on one acquisition for survival. When it collapsed, there was no fallback.
A coverage lesson for the U.S. and EU
Blocking the Amazon deal could have led to a worse end result: a U.S. robotics pioneer now managed by a Chinese language contract producer. Financial and manufacturing safety should issue into these selections.
iRobot wasn’t only a shopper firm. It was a robotics pioneer.
Anthony Nunez, founder and CEO, INF-Care
Unlucky however not shocked, many people OG roboticists noticed this coming-it is largely on account of their unwillingness or lack of ability to diversify their choices (ship different robots into adjoining or new areas) They began to with their army division after which offered that off prematurely.
Gary Shapiro, CEO and vice chair, Shopper Know-how Affiliation
This week marked a tragic chapter for iRobot, maker of the Roomba. This firm pioneered the idea of robotic vacuums and paved the best way for a product that makes life higher for thousands and thousands of individuals. iRobot knew they confronted intense competitors from China. What they didn’t consider was U.S. federal regulators kneecapping an American firm in service of a “large is unhealthy” agenda.
iRobot is a traditional story of American innovation. Launched in 1990 by three MIT graduates, they initially set their sights on lunar exploration, producing merchandise designed to be used by NASA. After a number of years, they pivoted to one thing slightly near dwelling – cellular cleaners often called Roombas.
Lately, the corporate confronted off towards Chinese language opponents, who benefitted from authorities assist, low-cost capital, and restricted mental property enforcement. That helped them take the product idea and design and produce it cheaper. So that they tried to pivot once more, trying to discover a bigger purchaser as a solution to faucet into new sources and scale their progress.
They discovered that firm in Amazon, which was desperate to wade right into a rising sector and will present market scale that was practically unimaginable for the small Massachusetts firm. It appeared like a match made in heaven, till European regulators swooped in on the specific request of the Lina Khan-led U.S. Federal Commerce Fee. For my part, the FTC regulators knew they couldn’t make a compelling case in U.S. Courts. The acquisition was clearly authorized underneath U.S. regulation! So as an alternative, they satisfied European regulators to dam one American firm shopping for one other. Because the deal fell aside in 2023, iRobot was pressured to put off tons of of American workers.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy referred to as the result a “unhappy story” of regulatory failure, suggesting that regulators “belief…Chinese language firms with maps of the within of U.S. shoppers’ properties greater than they do Amazon.” I name it an abomination, and financial malfeasance!
CTA was vocal in opposing this regulatory overreach. On the time, I printed an op-ed calling the collapse of the Amazon-iRobot deal a “blow to U.S. tech management.” Whereas it doesn’t make up for what I noticed as our authorities’s big mistake, at CTA’s 2023 Digital Patriots Dinner we acknowledged the iRobot founder Colin Angle with certainly one of our highest awards.
Sadly, the final word results of FTC interference was the chapter of iRobot, an amazing American firm. It should now be taken over by a Chinese language provider. I ask the FTC, and anybody studying this: are American shoppers higher off?
My view of life is that all of us make errors, however we must always use these errors as studying alternatives. Our American authorities ought to assist and defend American firms, not hamstring them. American officers shouldn’t get authorized cowl in the event that they search to make use of Europe’s regulatory overreach to dam American innovators.
This ought to be unlawful, and it’s definitely not proper. This must not ever occur once more.
Matt Schruers, president and CEO, Pc & Communications Business Affiliation
This chapter was foreseeable when regulators denied it a monetary lifeline that might have saved U.S. jobs and boosted competitors with Chinese language firms. Sadly, this market is now virtually completely foreign-owned – an end result that regulators ought to be avoiding, not inflicting. Policymakers and activists who celebrated when a deal to save lots of iRobot was thwarted have value American jobs and impaired U.S. standing in dwelling robotics. The takeaway ought to be a cautionary story for competitors companies reviewing low-risk mergers. Competitors coverage ought to defend competitors, not opponents.
iRobot’s merchandise through the years. | Credit score: iRobot
Josh Orenstein, CTO, Lindeman & Associates
The corporate that helped NASA discover Mars simply filed for chapter and handed management to its Chinese language provider.
iRobot didn’t fail as a result of they lacked technical experience. They constructed the PackBot that cleared IEDs in Fallujah and surveyed Fukushima’s radioactive ruins. Their staff designed rovers that knowledgeable Spirit and Alternative on Mars.
They failed as a result of organizational velocity beats technical excellence in shopper {hardware}.
Whereas iRobot spent 10 years creating a lawnmower that by no means shipped, Chinese language opponents went from idea to market in 6 months. Whereas regulators blocked Amazon’s acquisition to “defend competitors,” those self same Chinese language producers captured 70% of the worldwide market.
The robotic vacuum wars ended with American robotics innovation answering to Shenzhen provide chains.
This isn’t a narrative a couple of failed product. It’s about what occurs when strategic paralysis meets 3-4x quicker product cycles, and when regulatory asymmetry determines which firms survive.
Andrea Okerholm Huttlin, employees robotics software program engineer, Stack AV
iRobot’s chapter hits exhausting; it’s a spot the place I spent a lot of my profession and made so many pals. Its legacy isn’t (simply) Roomba and Packbot although. iRobot’s legacy can be the thriving robotics group that alumni have created and contributed to. Hundreds of individuals discovered actual, sensible shopper robotics on the job at iRobot.
I’m so grateful for all of you iRoboteers.
iRobot builders signed this first-generation Roomba Clever Floorvac. | Credit score: Joe Jones
Dylan Kim, senior engineering supervisor, Tesla
iRobot. Motorola. Nokia.
Completely different industries. Identical lesson.
Being a pioneer isn’t a assure of survival.
Now the automotive trade is going through the identical second.
Even automobile firms with practically 100 years of historical past
won’t survive in the event that they fail to adapt to new developments.
Historical past has already confirmed this.
And it at all times repeats itself.
Bob Hutchins, founder, Human Voice Media
My Roomba is gloomy this morning. The iRobot information this week hits type of exhausting. Seeing a category-defining firm file for Chapter 11 is painful, particularly when the customer is their very own manufacturing companion. The provider that constructed the machines is now buying the corporate for elements.
This example is a heavy lesson on company and the hazard of ‘ready to be saved.’
For the previous couple of years, iRobot appeared to carry its breath, ready for the Amazon deal to shut. It’s a widespread lure. When an exit seems on the horizon, the muscle reminiscence shifts. You change into cautious. You hesitate to spend on the subsequent large leap as a result of you are attempting to tidy up the steadiness sheet for the due diligence staff.
However the market refused to attend. Whereas iRobot sat in regulatory purgatory, opponents continued iterating. They constructed higher, cheaper, quicker merchandise.
The blocked Amazon deal delivered the ultimate blow, however the erosion began the second iRobot allowed its future to rely on another person’s signature.
A harmful second for any chief arrives when “Plan A” entails another person fixing your issues. Actual foresight calls for we stay viable even when the exit by no means comes.
Positive, outsourcing manufacturing brings effectivity. However, mentally outsourcing your future prices you every thing.
We ought to be asking ourselves: The place in our personal methods are we pausing, hoping for a rescue, as an alternative of doing the exhausting work of staying related on our personal phrases?
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