iRobot Founder Says FTC Treated Blocked Deals 'Like Trophies' as Bankruptcy Follows Failed Amazon Acquisition (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0180437979
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/22/1147243/irobot-founder-says-ftc-treated-blocked-deals-like-trophies-as-bankruptcy-follows-failed-amazon-acquisition
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/20/it-felt-so-wrong-colin-angle-on-irobot-the-ftc-and-the-amazon-deal-that-never-was/
During his deposition, Angle said he walked the halls of the FTC and noticed examiners had "printouts of deals blocked, like trophies" on their office doors. He entered the process "looking for a friend" and instead encountered the question: "Why should we ever let them do this?"
Further reading : [3]WSJ Editorial Board Says Lina Khan Killed iRobot .
[1] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/12/15/0152212/roomba-maker-irobot-files-for-bankruptcy-after-35-years
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/20/it-felt-so-wrong-colin-angle-on-irobot-the-ftc-and-the-amazon-deal-that-never-was/
[3] https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/19/1654219/how-lina-khan-killed-irobot
They are trophies (Score:4, Interesting)
Considering how seldom an anti-trust is initiated, never mind how often they actually result in something positive, they damned well are trophies.
Put me in charge and we'll go back to 1 TV station per owner, cable companies can't own TV stations, movie studios can't be streamers, and cats and dogs will learn to live together.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
> Put me in charge and we'll go back to 1 TV station per owner, cable companies can't own TV stations
IOW undoing the works of Bill Clinton.
If only more people understood how the TCA led to the rise of Faux News we might have some clarity.
Re: (Score:2)
Every law should go under some sort of adversarial review. Even the most beneficial sounding law can have major unintended consequences or well-disguised intended ones. I do think that nationwide cell networks would not have been what they are today (in a good way) without TCA, but that's partly because we wouldn't have done any other regulation to create the roaming cooperation that would be needed.
Re: (Score:3)
It's weird that you invoke the rampant consolidation of wildly profitable media and telecom companies that shows no sign of slowing down while talking about a failing AMERICAN robot vacuum company being sold off to china as some kind of worthy trophy.
A CEO (Score:2)
> He entered the process "looking for a friend"
A CEO was looking for a friend?
Re: (Score:3)
> A CEO was looking for a friend?
I thought rich people like that had people that can "find a friend" for them. That way they avoid Solicitation of Prostitution charges.
amazon could not have save them (Score:1)
iRobot was already doomed at that point, Chinese bots were doing what they did better and cheaper, what the fuck was amazon going to do to change that? Lay off the engineering team and source parts from china, that's what. Their only value to amazon was as an empty brand, they were dead as an innovator either way.
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon already does a lot with robotics in their warehouses. It's possible they wanted to buy just the brand name. It's also possible that it was worth it for some patent that should have never been granted. They do have a habit of buying up home automation companies and just doing very little with it. They have two brands that both have doorbells and security camera (Blink and Ring) and they don't even work together.
long teeth (Score:5, Informative)
Irobot was built on 1980 technology. At the time, it was state of the art. The Chinese are not stupid. Its heyday ended quite a while ago.
for fuck's sake (Score:1)
The question in antitrust is not "our company is failing and it would be super cool for our investors and our executives if Big Tech would buy us out." The reason antitrust regulators rejected this buyout was that Amazon would (based on their decades of past behavior) start to favor iRobot's crappy Chinese robots over all the other crappy Chinese robots who depend on Amazon as their primary method of distribution. This would be bad for consumers and the marketplace in general, for obvious reasons. And the p
Politics gets in way... (Score:2)
In theory, antitrust is enforcement on mergers is crucial to prevent damaging monopolies. In practice, we still end up with companies exerting monopoly power.
The problem with antitrust enforcement is that it becomes entirely political. There are only a few dozen transactions a year that might theoretically create serious antitrust concerns. Which ones get looked at/shut down seems to be more dependent on who is in the white house and the political connections at the companies involved than the merits of the
Re: (Score:2)
Monopolies are not illegal, and are not necessarily damaging. Abuse of one's monopoly power is where the harm comes from and is the thing that is illegal. Amazon is probably abusing their monopoly.
Business was done, let them die. (Score:2)
First, a corporation should be created and end as it's own entity; mergers and acquisitions should not be a thing between corporations. As such their company was in decline and should be dissolved if they can't continue as a going concern. Auction off the carcass and close the book on the corporate charter.
Regulations (Score:2)
There are 3 types of regulations:
1) Evil: These consist of regulations designed to protect businesses (make them profitable), appearance, or to hurt 'enemies' of the current political ruler. Licenses for cosmeticians/barbers, lawn neatness, requiring cars be sold by a local dealer, or outlawing certain religions from an area.
2) Safety: Stopping deaths/injuries. Seatbelts, anti-lead rules, etc.
3) Ethical: To prevent unethical business practices including but not limited to: anti-discrimination rules, tru
Here's the thing... (Score:2)
I'm not stating an opinion on whether this merger would have resulted in some form of monopoly. It may have, but Amazon could easily spin up its own robotic vacuum company if they wanted to. Either way, the result is that iRobot is now owned by a foreign company. So, what exactly was solved by blocking this merger other than the shareholders (private I think) of iRobot got screwed?
Re:tl;dr (Score:5, Insightful)
The regulators weren't going to block the deal because they wanted iRobot to die, nor because they wanted it to remain in Collin Angle's hands. They were going to block the deal because they didn't want Amazon to have it. The concern was that Amazon's position of being both a producer AND owner of a global marketplace would put them in a position of too much economic power.
Further, the FTC did not eliminate a choice for consumers. iRobot was already losing to the competition. This bid to be bought was a last-chance effort at putting the product in the hands of a better owner who might be able to make it competitive again.
The FTC didn't drive the business to bankruptcy. Collin Angle did.
So the only consumer benefit here is that Amazon is still just a marketplace administrator, and not also a producer, of at least one consumer product.