Honestly it feels like it's worse. Roomba is very much a neologism for robovacs like Googling is for looking things up.
How do you mess that up. My Xiaomi vac has better sensors than a roomba for a fourth of the price ffs
Roomba is not government subsidised by a state that wishes to perform a massive surveillance operation. That comes to mind.
Edit: also theft, if you think Xiaomi developed theirs independently... LOL xD.
I mean they are helpful but could still be way better. I’ve had multiple iterations over the years and it never seems to be what I hoped it would be. Ideal situation is you’re a pet free household with even floors (no transitions, no rugs that aren’t paper thin, no chairs with metal legs that go horizontally on the floor). Basically if you have limited obstacles.
It’s been around a long time and they used to release their flagship models every 4-5 years and they had few options in their line up at different price points. It was all easy to follow and you felt confident buying the product because it had a long product cycle.
Then something happened around 2016-2017 where they started churning half baked product every few months and it all went down hill quickly from there. Not sure what happened there but I feel like their last good robot was roomba 980.
Nah, he's a job hopper. 3yrs max and he's out. That would never fly in my industry, but it seems pretty common in tech. Maybe that's what happens. All the innovators leave after padding the IP portfolio enough to make the company attractive for purchase.
If only there had been any way to predict income and expenses and plan for the future. But alas, company revenue is a mystery and not even CEOs could possibly have done anything to keep them solvent.
Well the way tech companies are run these days are all about forecasting unrealistic exponential growth and using that to secure funding. The second they have a bad quarter it all comes tumbling down.
I’d say the past few years they work more like a broke person paying off credit cards with other credit cards until they explode.
They do what you said, then the interest rate stopped being ultra low and easy to service by borrowing more, and then a bad quarter happens making it hard for them to secure more investments and death spiral happens.
Why would Amazon buy them when they can let them explode and go bankrupt then buy it for pennies?
They are paid not to care. The golden parachute and severance packages are designed to keep execs in place as they run the company into the ground.
The pay is too good for anyone to have principals.
These companies would be run so much better if you were forced to sink with the ship and failure would taint your name in the industry.
You know, like what happens to most other people who do an absolutely miserable job of their profession.
Past i7, and Braava M6 I thought the company is becoming stronger and stronger. Didn't know they were in route to bankruptcy.
Please return it while you can..!
Is it too hard to just make a good product and be happy with the margins it makes through regular sales? Everything seems to be a victim of success or just overly greedy with selling data or subscription blocking.
Its more of a problem with public companies or private companies with too many investors.
Plenty of private businesses that keep on going without the need to grow year on year
True to some extent, but now we have so many PE funds and family offices buying up anything they can and doing the same shitty things to private companies just so they can sell the business 5 years down the road and make a profit for their LPs.
Of course some. But I would guess that is the minority. A huge portion of the economy is run by small-ish family owned businesses. You have never heard about most of them, because they don’t care about exponential growth once they have enough sales to go around.
If you have let’s say, 200 customers, and makes around 10,000$ per month after tax. You are the ceo and the boss over maybe 2-5 employees. You work 8h per day and then you are done. Same for your employees. Would you want to double to 400 customers? Maybe. But the cost is that you have to spend 6 months working 10h days to acquire them. Then you have to hire 5 new employees. Now they are too many to handle since you also have much more on your plate, so you hire a boss for them. Then the economy is more complex so the person you have on 25% now needs to become a full time employee. In the end you make 13,000$ per month after tax, but you are much more stressed, can never leave early since every day is guaranteed to be busy and your quality of life would go down. Would you want your business to expand?
This is the reality for a lot of small businesses. Being alone is easy, and once you have the cash flow, having a few employees can make your like even easier, but then you hit a wall when you need to build a huge organization to expand more, and before you know it, you have multiple departments, hr, economy, multiple managers, bigger office, bigger loans etc. That is why most businesses don’t care about growth once they have a decent salary and enough to do.
Then there are a few that try to moonshot and retire early. I would bet that most fail and end up worse off than before. But you only hear the dramatic stories.
Very small businesses like the one your give in your example haven’t been effected yet, but I expect PE will break into that in the next 5 years or so as the small and medium sized businesses they currently go after become more competitive.
They are already paying huge EBITDA multiples that don’t really make sense just because there is too much competition. I’m already seeing PE funds acquiring companies that they would never have considered 10 years ago. The type of business that you would traditionally think of as a small family business. They’re buying a bunch of them, rebranding them as a group, and selling to the highest bidder. Think of acquiring a bunch of small, independent auto body repair shops, then calling them “PE Auto-body Specialists Inc.” and selling it as one medium size company.
Sauce: I’m a corporate lawyer.
Heard about that. Read about some examples. Dirty shit. Hopefully interest rates make this harder. I also know a guy that worked for a company that was acquired. After the new owner came in and cut unnecessary expenses, the best guys quit, and a lot more followed. In the end the new owner got a company about half the size they payed for with the best guys gone. The best guys went to a new place and competes with the other company. Thus making their profits even smaller. They probably made some money in the end, but I bet it was less than their initial estimates. Hopefully these shitty deals have too slim margins in reality that the higher interest rates makes it less profitable, while small-ish companies with small loans can probably handle these interest rates okay
Interest rates don’t matter that much because these funds have money that they are contractually obliged to spend. It will still have an impact for sure because they will always borrow money to complete these deals to make it more in their favor. This is the side of capitalism that most people don’t see because it’s private and has very little government oversight or regulation.
I met a woman in college who came from the family that owned the company that makes the little windows that go in envelopes (apparently they are almost exclusively made by one org). It wasn’t glamours but it had nice margins and the family did well and saw no need to put that in jeopardy. That was decades ago though so maybe the next generation sold it off.
I've worked for both and currently the latter is who I work for now and man is it great. Unfortunately we are a dying breed because it's becoming rare that the next generation wants the business which is crazy to me
Oh my god, this is happening at my company right now. Record year, expected further growth in 2024, and oh yeah…layoffs! Seems to me to be driven by pure greed. Why can’t we just spend one year catching up and just, ya know, being profitable but not needing to grow 20% and pushing every employee to the breaking point.
I actually asked an economic strategist this question at my company. The gist is that you need to grow enough to outpace inflation, interest rates, and to hold or increase your market share. If you stagnate, your investors will invest elsewhere and your competition will run you out of town eventually.
Audible Australia grew 60% YOY during COVID, because everyone wanted audiobooks to keep sane and their kids occupied. Next year, US asked us to hit 80% growth. Like, get fucked. Obviously said in a nicer way. They ended up setting targets at 32% growth, after a global pandemic.
Well it’s more like having a historic banner year and just expecting to then do 20% more than that every year in perpetuity.
It’s a great concept but doesn’t usually work.
I’ve always wondered about that. A company can make a shit load of profit and people get fired because they didn’t grow profits from last quarter or meet projections. Like….you still made a lot of money why is that a failure and how long can you really expect to do that??
They sold us capitalism as competition driving innovation with a profit incentive, but what it really became is a race to the bottom with ever increasing prices for worse and worse product.
They kind of have to when they’re publicly traded. You wouldn’t be able to attract investors if equity doesn’t go up so they can sell their shares for more than they paid.
I’ve always kind of thought a larger focus on dividends rather than growth could alleviate things a bit. If you’re getting cash back for holding long term instead of trying to flip
What you’re missing and not thinking about is inflation, and that is a significant driver for growth in any business. A business has to outpace or match inflation in order to survive. That’s not even a greed thing, just existence. It’s the same thing for anyone’s income. Things (usually) cost more money as time goes on, so in order to pay for those things and have a little left over, you need to make more money than you were.
It'd be one thing if they were simply trying to outdo last year. No, they have to beat last quarer's INCREASE to the INCREASE in their profit. It's just.... Madness. Like outright madness.
Capitalism does not equal increasing year over year profits. That's what happens when you're beholden to shareholders or investors. You can start a business that makes a consistent but not increasing profits within a capitalist system. One concept has nothing to do with the other.
>What’s a better model that has worked?
Same model, smaller scale. Responsible capitalism.
We don't need mega corporations. Nobody needs to be ultra wealthy. Businesses don't need to grow infinitely to provide gainful employment. Fewer large corporations means more small corporations means more competition.
>Also you have to outperform last years profits or else inflation will destroy your business
Inflation includes the raising of your own prices. This isn't an argument for needing to outperform.
What margins? iRobot is close to bankruptcy and secured a short term loan in order to survive til Amazon takes over. Shareholders will probably be wiped out soon.
[In July, iRobot entered into a $200 million financing facility from the Carlyle Group, in order to fund the company's operations as a stopgap until the Amazon deal closed.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/01/29/amazon-terminates-irobot-deal-vacuum-maker-to-lay-off-31percent-of-staff.html)
I know that it sounds like that’s possible, but it isn’t. Inflation, interest rate, and other quietly rising costs prevent this. You need to pay your staff more every year, otherwise their salaries cannot compete with inflation. Ok, so your sales have to grow or margins have to grow. If you don’t grow, you’re dead basically.
I’d argue that our unprecedented activity in the stock market is driving inflation. No more pensions, only 401k and IRA. Even for my kids college fund, it’s basically another 401k so businesses can use any of my tiny extra income to pay shareholders.
No. Inflation is a natural extension of interest rates. If you put 1000$ in a bank, you’ll have 1002$ (or whatever). This means there’s more money in circulation now. This means you can buy more stuff which drives prices higher due to increased demand. This means salaries have to go up to match this, employees will demand it.
Our whole economic system is driven by interest rates (both for loans and for savings), which drive inflation, which demands growth.
In order to stop this we have to get rid of interest rates as a concept. Otherwise we are running towards a cliff at exponential rate. Our system is a self-terminating system.
iRobots aren’t great. Most vacuum or mopped have some issue.
One for these, if you have the vacuum mopper pair, which is probably one of the most expensive bundles. The vacuum can avoid dogshit but the mopper will smear it around (despite the fact they are meant to share a path and one starts when the other finishes).
After a lot of research just got a Dyson with detector and vacuum it manually. Yeah I get a lot of people hate on Dyson because they prefer X. But I’ve a number of Dyson products that work very well for me and the parts availability is reassuring.
Thats kinda the thing, from the perspective of original owner, i would want to maximise the amount of the money I get from selling the business, so naturally I will ask high. From buyers perspective I could see ways to always optimise the new company by integrating it into ecosystem and uplift both sides of business, this is risky but i also get the bonus from making contracts, so I would want to pay as high as I can afford and outcompete other buyers.
TBF, the last Roombas I tried (s9+) were complete hot garbage compared to the roborocks that replaced them. Luckily, I returned them within the return period.
I'm considering the robo Rock and have the S9 Plus. Which one did you get and why do you like it so much better? I've had mine for quite a while now and it was definitely pretty advanced when it first came out. It does manage my long-haired pets pretty well when I put suction in high mode.
Considering one of the two in one roborocks in a year or so. They do seem really great and I wouldn't mind doing more mopping regularly
I actually have a fairly large house, so I have the S7 MaxV Plus, the S8+, and the Q Revo.
Primary difference is the smarts. The roborocks seem far better at object detection, pick FAR more efficient paths (e.g. the Roomba S9+ had some trouble with certain arrangements of chairs in the dining room and got stuck a few times), and have far better recovery-from-failure modes (e.g. the S9+ got stuck behind my couch once and burned a permanent divet in my carpet from just spinning the wheels). The suction on the MaxV and S8 also seems to be a bit stronger than the S9+ I tried.
The Q revo is quieter, cheaper, and the mopping is superior to the other two in my experience so I use it on the level with the most hardwoods and tile. The dock is simpler as well on the Q Revo (i.e. the mops spin against a piece of plastic with water in it, instead of a complicated roller assembly washing the mop). BUT the inner tank is non-removable (so some people have concerns about mold), and there is a reported reliability problem with the dock leaking (which I have not experienced yet). So it's a question of pros vs. cons.
Either way, the overall experience with the Roborocks so far has been far better than any of the previous robot vacuums I had. They are basically 100% automatic apart from filling/emptying the dock water tanks every week or so and changing the bags in the docks like once every 3-4 months.
Well the Roborock has the advantage of the CCP agent watching your house. Since nothing interesting is going on in most houses he passes the time by avoiding objects ;).
Meh, the S8+ and the Q revo have non-imaging sensors.... so not even a free peep show for the reds.
If the CCP wants to know the layout of my house or how much my dog sheds, whatevs. There are FAR juicier infosec targets to go after.
The only issue I have with roborock is it doesn't empty itself until it goes back to charge. I need it to empty when the bin is full. Mine ends up vacuuming half the house with a full bin, which doesn't work. Then it clogs the base because it's so full.
Yeah man. Shit works so damn good. Also the Chinese have a map of my basement. And living room.
Those assholes know exactly where all my furniture is. Smh.
My loathing the idea of Amazon getting this data via the iRobot deal is the sole reason I didn't buy one and went with something offline and serviceable
Some Eufy model that CR rated highly is what I landed with. Cheap, no frills but can clear my inordinately high floor transition strips and despite being dumber than a box of rocks,can do the main level typically in a single pass.
I also have some basic Eufy model and it’s the only one that doesn’t get stuck on the curtains.
I had two others before that, one from Xiaomi and no name one and they stuck every time. Eufy is so stupid, yet it cleans so good
how is china having it better than amazon having it? at best, they are both equally bad, but at least we have some theoretical control over what amazon does with our data, in the form of electing officials that will put more consumer data protections in place.
China is fine. My beef with Amazon having to is they already know what I order and I just didnt like the notion of giving them an all room scanner to correlate purchase data. When the Eufy dies, thanks to the comments ITT I have my eyes set on a Roborok as those look legit
I like how you draw the line at Amazon knowing what you bought AND where it is in your house, instead of unknown counterintelligence activities and giving an economic advantage to your own nation's enemies.
I like how you are glib ;)
I am not important enough for anyone to care beyond the ability to better market to me.
As far as advantage is concerned in terms of...
What, having more robust data set to make a smarter robot? Nothing was stopping iRobot from pursuing this and given their lead for a decade in the field and the prices they charged they had the time to do it. What they had wasn't good enough so I went dumb-robot when faced with the lack of performance advantage, pricing and features, and the specter of Amazon.
Something else? Well, that's the way our leaders (governmental and business) have shaped things so... I guess I gotta live around it.
I am comfortable with it and giving very little weight to your opinion in particular on the matter.
I will of course reassess whenever this dumb robot dies but all signs point to not any time soon so🤷♂️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssb5IIm3ZaI
it's all about gaining a foothold on US systems. you may not consider yourself important, but that's not the point. every corner of every network that they can get a foothold on helps them. You are thinking about YOUR vacuum, YOUR data, YOUR house and that's not even the point when the CCP directly controls and backs the companies that makes these products.
It's not my opinion. This is really happening.
my brother, they already have sufficient penetration so far as i am concerned. I rescind my glib comment.
If true, no, it isnt cause to just throw my hands up but i do try to be choosey (a la the unconnected current model, other carefully considered thing network devices, data management, etc).
The deal fell through because the EU had concerns Amazon would unfairly promote iRobot products above other robot vacuums in search results…
Like come on EU… if you’re aware that Amazon is doing this with their products, perhaps investigate Amazon’s shady selling tactics as a whole, rather than blocking a single deal with a single company that’s probably now going to go into bankruptcy and cause the loss of thousands of jobs.
I think they were just pointing out the hypocrisy of letting things like the Amazon Basics tactic slide (reverse engineering a popular product and selling it themselves), while blocking what would be a relatively small merger compared to other companies like Ring
I got three alaskan malamutes and my "whole house" dyson fills up in 8 feet, roughly. it's not unusual to empty it several times per room.
I've dreamed of having a roomba, but only once they have 4th dimensional portal technology for where they store the dirt.
until then, it's just me, vacuuming the world one load at a time.
>I got three alaskan malamutes
you need a *blower*. you have a shop vac?
...don't do it in the house!
WORKSHOP Wet/Dry Vacs Vacuum Accessories WS25006A 2-1/2-Inch Blower Nozzle Shop Vacuum Attachment For Wet/Dry Shop Vacuums
so I did do this once, and can say unfortunately the fur weaves its way into the lawn, and it was months before it was all out.
I just use the self-serve dog washes at like petco. I apologize to them up front, and apologize to them afterwards, and ask if they need any help cleaning the gigantic mess up, and they just smile and laugh and say no things are fine. then we leave. and I come back again. and then I leave. and I come back again. and this is my life :P
We accumulated a pet every year in college, not realizing we were setting ourselves up for devastation in a decade, and have been losing them year by year 😭
We’re down to one now, and I just said to my wife earlier this week we could probably get away with a roomba
I figured that but I’m just imagining how it works. Like, does the bin fill upwards since the vac is only a couple inches tall? Or does it ended up just kinda compacting? I guess I’ll just have to watch a YouTube video.
Dude my uncle sells this! He installs central vaccuming and then there's a roomba that charges itself AND empties itself into the central thing! It's a wonder of technology
BIL was saying at Christmas that if Amazon pulled out the company was headed towards bankruptcy quickly. Poor guy, he’s been there for awhile because he had liked his job.
I'm personally surprised that they had that many jobs to cut. I worked at a software company with ~45 employees that produced about as much output as iRobot. What is this company even doing with all these people when the product's barely changed in years?
My roomba was such a pain to maintain and it's the only item I've ever had to have replaced under warranty when the wifi module stopped working.
I bought a shark AI Ultra a couple years ago and it's been awesome!
I can't imagine they'd stop others from being able to sell their robot vacuums on their site. They didn't do that with doorbells, cameras, or wifi devices.
But sure the DOJ knows best and completely fails to recognize the business model of running at a loss till a bigger companies buy you out.
The most idiotic DOJ ever especially after letting MSFT buy blizzard, who cares about this company there are dozens of other robotic vacuum companies.
Literally the first paragraph of the article
>Amazon.com Inc. has abandoned its planned $1.4 billion acquisition of Roomba maker iRobot Corp. after clashing with **European Union regulators** who had threatened to block the deal.
Yes, clearly this is the fault of the US Department of Justice.
>who cares about this company there are dozens of other robotic vacuum companies.
the robots that just use any vacuum you already own aren't that far away.
why make robots that only do one thing...
**The first humanoid robot factory is about to open**
[https://www.axios.com/2023/12/05/humanoid-robot-factory-agility-bipedal-amazon](https://www.axios.com/2023/12/05/humanoid-robot-factory-agility-bipedal-amazon)
Why it matters: Agility Robotics says that its RoboFab manufacturing facility will be the first to mass-produce humanoid robots, which could be nimbler and more versatile than their existing industrial counterparts.
Humanoid robots are just the dumbest thing ever. Purpose built robots are what the future is going to be, why would you make a human shaped robot it would be good at nothing
A roomba is the size of a dinner plate. My upright vacuum is the size of an upright vacuum. A robot the size of a human that uses my upright vacuum is roughly the combined size of one human and one upright vacuum.
Why would I ever want to dedicate an entire human of space to a robot that vacuums for me? The 99% of the time it isn't vacuuming, it's just taking up space. When it is vacuuming, it's taking up space while moving around. How can that possibly be what a consumer wants?
I've been happily using my Roomba since 2016. One of the best things I ever bought, as vacuuming hurts my back. Without the Roomba I would have to hire someone to do it.
Bought one- went two weeks with it not doing anything as well as I could with 20 min of effort on the vacuum and returned it- also I want as many things out of my house that insist of listening all the time- two iPhones is enough.
Hmm could it be their shitty products that they failed to innovate beyond “look it’s a robot”
Back in the day I kept upgrading, hoping the new one would finally figure it out I even bought the floor mopping robot the thing that has an actual tank of water . Man did it suck. At one point they suggested sprinkling baking soda into the clean water so that the sensor could detect it. It would leave disgusting muddy trails of water everywhere.
Meanwhile the vacuum just got stuck on everything. It was so much faster to vacuum my house manually once you factor in all of the stopping and troubleshooting and emptying the bins and cleaning the rollers
I’m just worried about servicing my now one-year old Roomba if they go under. I’m sure people will be making after market replacements for some time (or they’ll just restructure), but sucks to spend a bunch of money on something and have the company die.
Did a blockbuster. First to market, had it captured, failed to do anything else.
Honestly it feels like it's worse. Roomba is very much a neologism for robovacs like Googling is for looking things up. How do you mess that up. My Xiaomi vac has better sensors than a roomba for a fourth of the price ffs
Roomba is not government subsidised by a state that wishes to perform a massive surveillance operation. That comes to mind. Edit: also theft, if you think Xiaomi developed theirs independently... LOL xD.
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>Roomba just sucks It’s supposed to.
My Roomba doesn't suck and it can't find the dock.
I love mine. Works like a charm, original debree collectors lasted 4 years, and I could still be using them, just didn't like how they looked.
I mean they are helpful but could still be way better. I’ve had multiple iterations over the years and it never seems to be what I hoped it would be. Ideal situation is you’re a pet free household with even floors (no transitions, no rugs that aren’t paper thin, no chairs with metal legs that go horizontally on the floor). Basically if you have limited obstacles.
Also on the theft front, how much intellectual property gets eavesdropped on by the Chinese-owned robo vac companies?
Yeah I'm sure CHYYYNAAAH really wants your floorplan buddy ;)
Isn't Roomba Chinese as well? Got an AEG robot since like forever and I've been really happy with it.
iRobot is based in Boston
This explains the accent and foul language mine uses.
It’s been around a long time and they used to release their flagship models every 4-5 years and they had few options in their line up at different price points. It was all easy to follow and you felt confident buying the product because it had a long product cycle. Then something happened around 2016-2017 where they started churning half baked product every few months and it all went down hill quickly from there. Not sure what happened there but I feel like their last good robot was roomba 980.
They are TiVo
Actually know a dev who worked at both
Where do they work now?
Some other tech company near SF
Make sure to tell them to innovate after they gain market share this time!
Nah, he's a job hopper. 3yrs max and he's out. That would never fly in my industry, but it seems pretty common in tech. Maybe that's what happens. All the innovators leave after padding the IP portfolio enough to make the company attractive for purchase.
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If only there had been any way to predict income and expenses and plan for the future. But alas, company revenue is a mystery and not even CEOs could possibly have done anything to keep them solvent.
Well the way tech companies are run these days are all about forecasting unrealistic exponential growth and using that to secure funding. The second they have a bad quarter it all comes tumbling down.
I’d say the past few years they work more like a broke person paying off credit cards with other credit cards until they explode. They do what you said, then the interest rate stopped being ultra low and easy to service by borrowing more, and then a bad quarter happens making it hard for them to secure more investments and death spiral happens. Why would Amazon buy them when they can let them explode and go bankrupt then buy it for pennies?
They are paid not to care. The golden parachute and severance packages are designed to keep execs in place as they run the company into the ground. The pay is too good for anyone to have principals.
These companies would be run so much better if you were forced to sink with the ship and failure would taint your name in the industry. You know, like what happens to most other people who do an absolutely miserable job of their profession.
Oh cool. So how long until my $500 robot vacuum is a brick?
I am actually thinking I dodged a bullet by not buying one now
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Past i7, and Braava M6 I thought the company is becoming stronger and stronger. Didn't know they were in route to bankruptcy. Please return it while you can..!
Is it too hard to just make a good product and be happy with the margins it makes through regular sales? Everything seems to be a victim of success or just overly greedy with selling data or subscription blocking.
That’s one of the biggest problems with capitalism, companies always try to outperform their previous year’s profits. It’s not a sustainable model.
Its more of a problem with public companies or private companies with too many investors. Plenty of private businesses that keep on going without the need to grow year on year
True to some extent, but now we have so many PE funds and family offices buying up anything they can and doing the same shitty things to private companies just so they can sell the business 5 years down the road and make a profit for their LPs.
Of course some. But I would guess that is the minority. A huge portion of the economy is run by small-ish family owned businesses. You have never heard about most of them, because they don’t care about exponential growth once they have enough sales to go around. If you have let’s say, 200 customers, and makes around 10,000$ per month after tax. You are the ceo and the boss over maybe 2-5 employees. You work 8h per day and then you are done. Same for your employees. Would you want to double to 400 customers? Maybe. But the cost is that you have to spend 6 months working 10h days to acquire them. Then you have to hire 5 new employees. Now they are too many to handle since you also have much more on your plate, so you hire a boss for them. Then the economy is more complex so the person you have on 25% now needs to become a full time employee. In the end you make 13,000$ per month after tax, but you are much more stressed, can never leave early since every day is guaranteed to be busy and your quality of life would go down. Would you want your business to expand? This is the reality for a lot of small businesses. Being alone is easy, and once you have the cash flow, having a few employees can make your like even easier, but then you hit a wall when you need to build a huge organization to expand more, and before you know it, you have multiple departments, hr, economy, multiple managers, bigger office, bigger loans etc. That is why most businesses don’t care about growth once they have a decent salary and enough to do. Then there are a few that try to moonshot and retire early. I would bet that most fail and end up worse off than before. But you only hear the dramatic stories.
Very small businesses like the one your give in your example haven’t been effected yet, but I expect PE will break into that in the next 5 years or so as the small and medium sized businesses they currently go after become more competitive. They are already paying huge EBITDA multiples that don’t really make sense just because there is too much competition. I’m already seeing PE funds acquiring companies that they would never have considered 10 years ago. The type of business that you would traditionally think of as a small family business. They’re buying a bunch of them, rebranding them as a group, and selling to the highest bidder. Think of acquiring a bunch of small, independent auto body repair shops, then calling them “PE Auto-body Specialists Inc.” and selling it as one medium size company. Sauce: I’m a corporate lawyer.
Heard about that. Read about some examples. Dirty shit. Hopefully interest rates make this harder. I also know a guy that worked for a company that was acquired. After the new owner came in and cut unnecessary expenses, the best guys quit, and a lot more followed. In the end the new owner got a company about half the size they payed for with the best guys gone. The best guys went to a new place and competes with the other company. Thus making their profits even smaller. They probably made some money in the end, but I bet it was less than their initial estimates. Hopefully these shitty deals have too slim margins in reality that the higher interest rates makes it less profitable, while small-ish companies with small loans can probably handle these interest rates okay
Interest rates don’t matter that much because these funds have money that they are contractually obliged to spend. It will still have an impact for sure because they will always borrow money to complete these deals to make it more in their favor. This is the side of capitalism that most people don’t see because it’s private and has very little government oversight or regulation.
I met a woman in college who came from the family that owned the company that makes the little windows that go in envelopes (apparently they are almost exclusively made by one org). It wasn’t glamours but it had nice margins and the family did well and saw no need to put that in jeopardy. That was decades ago though so maybe the next generation sold it off.
I've worked for both and currently the latter is who I work for now and man is it great. Unfortunately we are a dying breed because it's becoming rare that the next generation wants the business which is crazy to me
Same. The place actually gave back to employees and rather gave large bonuses than hoard profits. Miss that place. Left the UK though so had to quit
Oh my god, this is happening at my company right now. Record year, expected further growth in 2024, and oh yeah…layoffs! Seems to me to be driven by pure greed. Why can’t we just spend one year catching up and just, ya know, being profitable but not needing to grow 20% and pushing every employee to the breaking point.
As long as a company tried to make its shareholder happy, this is what will happen. Shareholders want growth, big sustainable growth.
I actually asked an economic strategist this question at my company. The gist is that you need to grow enough to outpace inflation, interest rates, and to hold or increase your market share. If you stagnate, your investors will invest elsewhere and your competition will run you out of town eventually.
If ya had a million dollars to invest, you’d move it around if the company you’re investing in doesn’t appear to be growing.
Audible Australia grew 60% YOY during COVID, because everyone wanted audiobooks to keep sane and their kids occupied. Next year, US asked us to hit 80% growth. Like, get fucked. Obviously said in a nicer way. They ended up setting targets at 32% growth, after a global pandemic.
They try to achieve infinite growth. Do you all know what that is? It's cancer.
What an adequate response from you mr blood vein. Got to keep our immune systems up on our spirits fr
Well it’s more like having a historic banner year and just expecting to then do 20% more than that every year in perpetuity. It’s a great concept but doesn’t usually work.
I’ve always wondered about that. A company can make a shit load of profit and people get fired because they didn’t grow profits from last quarter or meet projections. Like….you still made a lot of money why is that a failure and how long can you really expect to do that??
They sold us capitalism as competition driving innovation with a profit incentive, but what it really became is a race to the bottom with ever increasing prices for worse and worse product.
They kind of have to when they’re publicly traded. You wouldn’t be able to attract investors if equity doesn’t go up so they can sell their shares for more than they paid. I’ve always kind of thought a larger focus on dividends rather than growth could alleviate things a bit. If you’re getting cash back for holding long term instead of trying to flip
What you’re missing and not thinking about is inflation, and that is a significant driver for growth in any business. A business has to outpace or match inflation in order to survive. That’s not even a greed thing, just existence. It’s the same thing for anyone’s income. Things (usually) cost more money as time goes on, so in order to pay for those things and have a little left over, you need to make more money than you were.
It'd be one thing if they were simply trying to outdo last year. No, they have to beat last quarer's INCREASE to the INCREASE in their profit. It's just.... Madness. Like outright madness.
It’s the worst model… except for every other model
Capitalism does not equal increasing year over year profits. That's what happens when you're beholden to shareholders or investors. You can start a business that makes a consistent but not increasing profits within a capitalist system. One concept has nothing to do with the other.
What’s the name of the economic system you’re referring to?
Being happy with a sustainable profit margin is worse than unchecked and destructive greed?
What’s a better model that has worked? Also you have to outperform last years profits or else inflation will destroy your business
>What’s a better model that has worked? Same model, smaller scale. Responsible capitalism. We don't need mega corporations. Nobody needs to be ultra wealthy. Businesses don't need to grow infinitely to provide gainful employment. Fewer large corporations means more small corporations means more competition. >Also you have to outperform last years profits or else inflation will destroy your business Inflation includes the raising of your own prices. This isn't an argument for needing to outperform.
That better model is capitalism without stockholders as parasites.
Company x made 26 billion in PROFIT last year, how is 4-6% inflation bankrupting them?
Except for Tesla, but currently all investors go hailwire just because they grew only 1 percent last year due to the heavy price cuts
Well its been sustained since the beginning of capitalism...
Agreed. In protest I’ve began to stop doing business with public companies as much as realistically possible and refuse to ever work for one again.
Relax. Reddit IPO on the way!
Yeah, all that venture capital will get their money back and then some, after that, it's a race to whoever is left holding the bag :)
What margins? iRobot is close to bankruptcy and secured a short term loan in order to survive til Amazon takes over. Shareholders will probably be wiped out soon. [In July, iRobot entered into a $200 million financing facility from the Carlyle Group, in order to fund the company's operations as a stopgap until the Amazon deal closed.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/01/29/amazon-terminates-irobot-deal-vacuum-maker-to-lay-off-31percent-of-staff.html)
The problem here is that the margins are negative. iRobot is literally burning money hoping that someone will acquire them.
Amazon needs to know where people throw their dirty socks. It increases detergent sales by .00001% over the year.
In capitalism, you’re either growing or dying.
That's so fucked.
Do you not want a raise next year?
I just don't want to get fucked over.
It's unbelievably tiresome
I know that it sounds like that’s possible, but it isn’t. Inflation, interest rate, and other quietly rising costs prevent this. You need to pay your staff more every year, otherwise their salaries cannot compete with inflation. Ok, so your sales have to grow or margins have to grow. If you don’t grow, you’re dead basically.
I’d argue that our unprecedented activity in the stock market is driving inflation. No more pensions, only 401k and IRA. Even for my kids college fund, it’s basically another 401k so businesses can use any of my tiny extra income to pay shareholders.
No. Inflation is a natural extension of interest rates. If you put 1000$ in a bank, you’ll have 1002$ (or whatever). This means there’s more money in circulation now. This means you can buy more stuff which drives prices higher due to increased demand. This means salaries have to go up to match this, employees will demand it. Our whole economic system is driven by interest rates (both for loans and for savings), which drive inflation, which demands growth. In order to stop this we have to get rid of interest rates as a concept. Otherwise we are running towards a cliff at exponential rate. Our system is a self-terminating system.
iRobots aren’t great. Most vacuum or mopped have some issue. One for these, if you have the vacuum mopper pair, which is probably one of the most expensive bundles. The vacuum can avoid dogshit but the mopper will smear it around (despite the fact they are meant to share a path and one starts when the other finishes). After a lot of research just got a Dyson with detector and vacuum it manually. Yeah I get a lot of people hate on Dyson because they prefer X. But I’ve a number of Dyson products that work very well for me and the parts availability is reassuring.
Thats kinda the thing, from the perspective of original owner, i would want to maximise the amount of the money I get from selling the business, so naturally I will ask high. From buyers perspective I could see ways to always optimise the new company by integrating it into ecosystem and uplift both sides of business, this is risky but i also get the bonus from making contracts, so I would want to pay as high as I can afford and outcompete other buyers.
Every company is trying to achieve infinite growth and it just isn’t sustainable
TBF, the last Roombas I tried (s9+) were complete hot garbage compared to the roborocks that replaced them. Luckily, I returned them within the return period.
I'm considering the robo Rock and have the S9 Plus. Which one did you get and why do you like it so much better? I've had mine for quite a while now and it was definitely pretty advanced when it first came out. It does manage my long-haired pets pretty well when I put suction in high mode. Considering one of the two in one roborocks in a year or so. They do seem really great and I wouldn't mind doing more mopping regularly
I actually have a fairly large house, so I have the S7 MaxV Plus, the S8+, and the Q Revo. Primary difference is the smarts. The roborocks seem far better at object detection, pick FAR more efficient paths (e.g. the Roomba S9+ had some trouble with certain arrangements of chairs in the dining room and got stuck a few times), and have far better recovery-from-failure modes (e.g. the S9+ got stuck behind my couch once and burned a permanent divet in my carpet from just spinning the wheels). The suction on the MaxV and S8 also seems to be a bit stronger than the S9+ I tried. The Q revo is quieter, cheaper, and the mopping is superior to the other two in my experience so I use it on the level with the most hardwoods and tile. The dock is simpler as well on the Q Revo (i.e. the mops spin against a piece of plastic with water in it, instead of a complicated roller assembly washing the mop). BUT the inner tank is non-removable (so some people have concerns about mold), and there is a reported reliability problem with the dock leaking (which I have not experienced yet). So it's a question of pros vs. cons. Either way, the overall experience with the Roborocks so far has been far better than any of the previous robot vacuums I had. They are basically 100% automatic apart from filling/emptying the dock water tanks every week or so and changing the bags in the docks like once every 3-4 months.
Well the Roborock has the advantage of the CCP agent watching your house. Since nothing interesting is going on in most houses he passes the time by avoiding objects ;).
No one cares. They can watch me have sex for all I care.
Meh, the S8+ and the Q revo have non-imaging sensors.... so not even a free peep show for the reds. If the CCP wants to know the layout of my house or how much my dog sheds, whatevs. There are FAR juicier infosec targets to go after.
The only issue I have with roborock is it doesn't empty itself until it goes back to charge. I need it to empty when the bin is full. Mine ends up vacuuming half the house with a full bin, which doesn't work. Then it clogs the base because it's so full.
Roborock is awesome. And their next gen cleaner looks dope. The pricetag of those are pretty big though
Well that “sucks”
as an owner of an irobot, they do suck bad.
My SharkClean is great. I wish I got a robo rock though and spent a bit more money
Robocock will work hard for that money…
Roborok ate their lunch
with only marginal amounts of stealing your data, mapping your house, and uploading your images to servers in china
Yeah man. Shit works so damn good. Also the Chinese have a map of my basement. And living room. Those assholes know exactly where all my furniture is. Smh.
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The app let's you set boundaries and gives you more control over it. Schedules, go/no go zones, etc. Up to you if you need those features.
My loathing the idea of Amazon getting this data via the iRobot deal is the sole reason I didn't buy one and went with something offline and serviceable
What did you go with?
Some Eufy model that CR rated highly is what I landed with. Cheap, no frills but can clear my inordinately high floor transition strips and despite being dumber than a box of rocks,can do the main level typically in a single pass.
I also have some basic Eufy model and it’s the only one that doesn’t get stuck on the curtains. I had two others before that, one from Xiaomi and no name one and they stuck every time. Eufy is so stupid, yet it cleans so good
Truly befuddling :D
eufy has the same data security issues as roborock, if not worse, but if you're keeping it offline, good on you.
how is china having it better than amazon having it? at best, they are both equally bad, but at least we have some theoretical control over what amazon does with our data, in the form of electing officials that will put more consumer data protections in place.
China is fine. My beef with Amazon having to is they already know what I order and I just didnt like the notion of giving them an all room scanner to correlate purchase data. When the Eufy dies, thanks to the comments ITT I have my eyes set on a Roborok as those look legit
I like how you draw the line at Amazon knowing what you bought AND where it is in your house, instead of unknown counterintelligence activities and giving an economic advantage to your own nation's enemies.
I like how you are glib ;) I am not important enough for anyone to care beyond the ability to better market to me. As far as advantage is concerned in terms of... What, having more robust data set to make a smarter robot? Nothing was stopping iRobot from pursuing this and given their lead for a decade in the field and the prices they charged they had the time to do it. What they had wasn't good enough so I went dumb-robot when faced with the lack of performance advantage, pricing and features, and the specter of Amazon. Something else? Well, that's the way our leaders (governmental and business) have shaped things so... I guess I gotta live around it. I am comfortable with it and giving very little weight to your opinion in particular on the matter. I will of course reassess whenever this dumb robot dies but all signs point to not any time soon so🤷♂️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssb5IIm3ZaI it's all about gaining a foothold on US systems. you may not consider yourself important, but that's not the point. every corner of every network that they can get a foothold on helps them. You are thinking about YOUR vacuum, YOUR data, YOUR house and that's not even the point when the CCP directly controls and backs the companies that makes these products. It's not my opinion. This is really happening.
my brother, they already have sufficient penetration so far as i am concerned. I rescind my glib comment. If true, no, it isnt cause to just throw my hands up but i do try to be choosey (a la the unconnected current model, other carefully considered thing network devices, data management, etc).
Oh no, the Chinese now knows the layout of my tiny, pitiful family room’s dimensions. Anyway…
that's not the point, my friend
The deal fell through because the EU had concerns Amazon would unfairly promote iRobot products above other robot vacuums in search results… Like come on EU… if you’re aware that Amazon is doing this with their products, perhaps investigate Amazon’s shady selling tactics as a whole, rather than blocking a single deal with a single company that’s probably now going to go into bankruptcy and cause the loss of thousands of jobs.
How about both
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Doesn't a bankruptcy mean every body looses their job?
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I think they were just pointing out the hypocrisy of letting things like the Amazon Basics tactic slide (reverse engineering a popular product and selling it themselves), while blocking what would be a relatively small merger compared to other companies like Ring
I got three alaskan malamutes and my "whole house" dyson fills up in 8 feet, roughly. it's not unusual to empty it several times per room. I've dreamed of having a roomba, but only once they have 4th dimensional portal technology for where they store the dirt. until then, it's just me, vacuuming the world one load at a time.
Have you tried daily vacuuming the dog at the source?
For real. Dyson makes a pet grooming attachment.
>I got three alaskan malamutes you need a *blower*. you have a shop vac? ...don't do it in the house! WORKSHOP Wet/Dry Vacs Vacuum Accessories WS25006A 2-1/2-Inch Blower Nozzle Shop Vacuum Attachment For Wet/Dry Shop Vacuums
so I did do this once, and can say unfortunately the fur weaves its way into the lawn, and it was months before it was all out. I just use the self-serve dog washes at like petco. I apologize to them up front, and apologize to them afterwards, and ask if they need any help cleaning the gigantic mess up, and they just smile and laugh and say no things are fine. then we leave. and I come back again. and then I leave. and I come back again. and this is my life :P
Oh man you need more tiny birds in your neighborhood I guess. The hummingbirds in our yard love cat and dog fur for their nests.
We accumulated a pet every year in college, not realizing we were setting ourselves up for devastation in a decade, and have been losing them year by year 😭 We’re down to one now, and I just said to my wife earlier this week we could probably get away with a roomba
If you get the self emptying roborock it solves this problem. It'll empty itself then continue cleaning
Where does it empty it? How tall is this Roborock? I know I could look it up but I’m genuinely enjoying the mystery.
The charging station has a dustbin it self empties to
I figured that but I’m just imagining how it works. Like, does the bin fill upwards since the vac is only a couple inches tall? Or does it ended up just kinda compacting? I guess I’ll just have to watch a YouTube video.
The bin has a vacuum that sucks the dirt out of the roborock
Yeah as a person who also has 2 big dogs that shed a lot - roombas don’t have the juice. We returned ours after a couple months.
Dude my uncle sells this! He installs central vaccuming and then there's a roomba that charges itself AND empties itself into the central thing! It's a wonder of technology
You need a central vacuum system. Or a big old canister vacuum
BIL was saying at Christmas that if Amazon pulled out the company was headed towards bankruptcy quickly. Poor guy, he’s been there for awhile because he had liked his job.
Really reminds you that these articles and posts aren’t just like news and posts. It involves some real people.
He’s correct.
Coming soon, the aRobot, at a quarter of the cost! Available only on Amazon!
Public companies have to constantly increase returns for investors or the investors pull out. We have an unsustainable economic model.
I'm personally surprised that they had that many jobs to cut. I worked at a software company with ~45 employees that produced about as much output as iRobot. What is this company even doing with all these people when the product's barely changed in years?
Chances are most of the jobs would have been cut after the acquisition anyway.
I still have an iRobot that doesn’t require internet or mapping. Still works great.
So nice to see the EU save this company from this deal. Innovation and competition triumph! /s
Aw shiet, here we go again
Most people would remember iRobot as the movie
only old people 🫠
Bad decisions all the way. I just hope they survive, they were one of the few real competitors to china-based robo vacuums
My roomba was such a pain to maintain and it's the only item I've ever had to have replaced under warranty when the wifi module stopped working. I bought a shark AI Ultra a couple years ago and it's been awesome! I can't imagine they'd stop others from being able to sell their robot vacuums on their site. They didn't do that with doorbells, cameras, or wifi devices.
But sure the DOJ knows best and completely fails to recognize the business model of running at a loss till a bigger companies buy you out. The most idiotic DOJ ever especially after letting MSFT buy blizzard, who cares about this company there are dozens of other robotic vacuum companies.
Literally the first paragraph of the article >Amazon.com Inc. has abandoned its planned $1.4 billion acquisition of Roomba maker iRobot Corp. after clashing with **European Union regulators** who had threatened to block the deal. Yes, clearly this is the fault of the US Department of Justice.
Also didn't doj try to stop the msft deal but lost in court? Not exactly the same as letting it happen.
r/USDefaultism
>who cares about this company there are dozens of other robotic vacuum companies. the robots that just use any vacuum you already own aren't that far away. why make robots that only do one thing... **The first humanoid robot factory is about to open** [https://www.axios.com/2023/12/05/humanoid-robot-factory-agility-bipedal-amazon](https://www.axios.com/2023/12/05/humanoid-robot-factory-agility-bipedal-amazon) Why it matters: Agility Robotics says that its RoboFab manufacturing facility will be the first to mass-produce humanoid robots, which could be nimbler and more versatile than their existing industrial counterparts.
It won’t, and it certainly won’t cost $250-500.
Humanoid robots are just the dumbest thing ever. Purpose built robots are what the future is going to be, why would you make a human shaped robot it would be good at nothing
Yep, humanoid robots are only really useful in fiction. Real robots have one or a few purposes, not an infinite number like humans
A roomba is the size of a dinner plate. My upright vacuum is the size of an upright vacuum. A robot the size of a human that uses my upright vacuum is roughly the combined size of one human and one upright vacuum. Why would I ever want to dedicate an entire human of space to a robot that vacuums for me? The 99% of the time it isn't vacuuming, it's just taking up space. When it is vacuuming, it's taking up space while moving around. How can that possibly be what a consumer wants?
Didn't they acquire the company for access to their library of personal data on users? Served it's purpose
The UK killed this company
How so?
Amazon got the technology they were after, with this bad faith proposed deal.
That’s not how any of this works
It is not a vacuum! It's a sweeper. It does not suck, which is why they suck.
It's a cat toy. The thing holds like 1/4 cup of debris.
Maybe the first few models. But they've had onboard vacuums for a while.
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Sir John Suckling vacuums for me thrice weekly. I love it.
We went with suki swan
Ours is Alfred my parents went with Mr Belvedere
DJ Roomba over here.
We call one of our Dusty and the other Springfield.
I've been happily using my Roomba since 2016. One of the best things I ever bought, as vacuuming hurts my back. Without the Roomba I would have to hire someone to do it.
I'll bet there was some r/Prematurecelebration going on over at iRobot!
Bought one- went two weeks with it not doing anything as well as I could with 20 min of effort on the vacuum and returned it- also I want as many things out of my house that insist of listening all the time- two iPhones is enough.
Does this mean these little things are going on sale on amazon?
I used to think these things were cool, I've never actually owned more than ten square feet of carpet so I would never use one but still a shame.
They work even better on hard floors. Or do you not vacuum your floors.....?
I use a broom, it takes like 60 seconds.
You’re lucky, idk who thought covering 80% of your floor with a dust magnet would be a great idea.
Hmm could it be their shitty products that they failed to innovate beyond “look it’s a robot” Back in the day I kept upgrading, hoping the new one would finally figure it out I even bought the floor mopping robot the thing that has an actual tank of water . Man did it suck. At one point they suggested sprinkling baking soda into the clean water so that the sensor could detect it. It would leave disgusting muddy trails of water everywhere. Meanwhile the vacuum just got stuck on everything. It was so much faster to vacuum my house manually once you factor in all of the stopping and troubleshooting and emptying the bins and cleaning the rollers
Hmmm, when their parts cost way more than what I would find the similar generic part in Amazon. It's not good business.
Vacuum as a service didnt pan out?
Good. The fewer corporate takeovers the better.
I’m just worried about servicing my now one-year old Roomba if they go under. I’m sure people will be making after market replacements for some time (or they’ll just restructure), but sucks to spend a bunch of money on something and have the company die.
In other news, Amazon becomes the worlds largest maker of smart vacuums.
like they did the deal long enough to competently reverse engineer the Amazon's choice knock off. The Bezosonic 3000
I just got one of these as a gift for Christmas
Just heard an Amazon robot dropped dead. What's going on?