00:00iRobot, the maker of the Roomba Robotic Vacuum, has filed for a pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy
00:06and the fallout has reached Wall Street.
00:08Carlyle Group has lost more than $100 million on a loan to the firm, recovering just $39
00:14million.
00:15Carlyle eventually sold the remaining debt at a steep discount to a subsidiary of China-based
00:20Piccia Robotics, which is now set to acquire iRobot through a court-supervised restructuring.
00:26Since its 2002 debut, iRobot has sold over 50 million units of the Roomba and remains
00:32a household name.
00:33For years though, the company failed to compete effectively on technology and pricing, mainly
00:38against Chinese rivals and lost market share.
00:41Regulators blocked Amazon's $1.7 billion acquisition in 2024 and losses mounted as President Trump's
00:49recent tariffs on Vietnam added more pressure.
00:53Well, iRobot was founded in 1990 by MIT innovators Colin Angel, Rodney Brooks and Helen Greiner,
00:59who joins us today to share her perspective on the company's fates on robotics and what's
01:03next for the industry.
01:05And Helen served as iRobot's President until 2004 and Chair until 2008.
01:11Helen, thanks so much for joining us today.
01:13I mean, as I outlined there, it's been a while since you've sat on the boards at iRobot, but this
01:20company was your baby.
01:21The Roomba was your baby.
01:22I'm wondering if you had any feelings about what's happening.
01:25Yeah, I'm a bit heartbroken today.
01:28Well, when we heard the news about the Chapter 11 bankruptcy, it's, you know, building iRobot
01:35was a dream come true to me because I wanted to build robots since I was 11 years old.
01:39And so I still was, and we did it, we succeeded.
01:43And, you know, there's lots of reasons why it has gone this way, but it's, it's really
01:51a shame.
01:51It's, it's heartbreaking.
01:53I'm just curious.
01:55We have to know, we were talking about this before the show.
01:58Do you still have a Roomba?
01:59I have many Roombas, including one of the first ones.
02:06And they do an excellent, they do an excellent job.
02:09They do an excellent job keeping the floors clean.
02:13One of the criticisms of the company, as we also outlined there, is iRobot failed to switch
02:19to LiDAR, which almost feels like a Nokia moment.
02:23And I'm wondering if you'd stayed with the company, would you have recommended to switch
02:28to that technology?
02:30I probably would have, actually.
02:32I'm really surprised you bring that up.
02:34I almost didn't buy a Tesla because it didn't have LiDAR on it.
02:38Although I'm really glad I did because it's phenomenal.
02:42But yes, I've always been a fan of LiDAR because it can see in the dark and it, it doesn't
02:49have some of the problems that vision will have in edge cases.
02:55That's what we call them in the Roomba field, you know, when things aren't quite what you
02:59expected.
03:02It's interesting that you mentioned Tesla and, you know, the hesitation you had in buying
03:06an EV that didn't use LiDAR.
03:09Do you see that as becoming a debate in the EV space, the camera versus LiDAR?
03:13And is it the same story?
03:15I mean, Tesla's proven it's not necessarily a mistake to avoid LiDAR.
03:19But is that the better technology?
03:22I think long term, Elon's right that it will be vision.
03:27But in the shorter term, until all the problems have been overcome, you know, LiDAR does work
03:34well, especially when you're indoors and you may not want to put headlights on your robot
03:42to go around.
03:42But, you know, when iRobot came out with the vision system, I don't want to take anything
03:48away from them.
03:49They did a phenomenal job that was a real breakthrough in being able to navigate at a low cost around
03:57a home.
03:58Well, considering how global supply chains have evolved since your involvement with iRobot,
04:07do you feel that the company becoming part of the Chinese ecosystem and manufacturing and
04:13supply chains was in a way inevitable?
04:15Well, we've always manufactured the Roomba in China and now Vietnam, but we always thought
04:26it was inevitable.
04:28Like what we learned very early on is that the low cost labor doesn't exist here.
04:34The very skilled and intricate construction isn't here.
04:43I mean, there's lines of mostly women building Roombas in China and Vietnam.
04:50And also, you know, you don't have the supply chain here.
04:54It really hasn't set up for manufacturing.
04:57There's a price point at which you can manufacture in this country.
05:01A car, I know, Walpole does some washing machines here, but it's extremely, extremely difficult.
05:10And, you know, don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
05:14We certainly would have wanted to manufacture in the United States.
05:17And as the value of the robots go up and the costs, you know, what people are willing to
05:23pay for them go up, I think they can be manufactured in the United States.
05:27But it certainly wasn't possible for these low cost consumer products or things like toy,
05:33high end toys.
05:34It's something that it's just not possible.
05:38Well, that is part of the motivation of President Trump's tariffs is to bring that
05:43manufacturing back to the United States.
05:45Do you feel that it's going to make a difference for companies?
05:48Well, maybe too late for iRobot, for other companies that were potentially facing the same
05:52situation?
05:54I think it will be hard to get a low cost consumer product manufactured in this country.
06:01But I, you know, I'm a big fan of the innovation happening in this country.
06:08You know, I've all but employed thousands of people.
06:11We got 50 million Roombas out there.
06:14You know, it was a life changing experience for a lot of people who who work there in engineering,
06:22marketing and all kinds of other capacities.
06:26So I think having that part of it in the United States can work as well.
06:33How would you characterize the current state of competition between the US and China in
06:38the robotic space?
06:39Do you feel like any one country is leading?
06:42Where's most of the innovation happening now?
06:45Well, that's that's the issue.
06:47We were leading.
06:48Remember, iRobot proved that you could have a business around robots.
06:54And believe me, when we started in 1990, that was not at all, you know, certainly the case.
07:00But we did it.
07:01We succeeded.
07:02A dream come true.
07:03And now it's really, you know, iRobot, the assets are going to a Chinese company.
07:13Chinese companies are independently succeeding in this in this field.
07:20And, you know, everybody's all crazy about humanoids right now.
07:24The humanoids coming out of China are, you know, I think as good as the ones here, but
07:31also at a lower price point because they are concentrating on manufacturing efficiency as
07:35well.
07:36Now, I don't believe we should just be concentrating on humanoids.
07:39I think we should I think we should be more innovative in our thinking.
07:44Yeah, I want to talk about some of that innovation in a second.
07:47But you mentioned U.S.
07:50technology heading to China in a situation such as iRobot.
07:53I mean, you've also got a background as a U.S. military advisor.
07:57Are there any national security implications from these sorts of technology transfers?
08:02Well, I think there are.
08:04And there was a huge press outcry when Amazon was going to buy it, a great American company,
08:11right?
08:13But there's been hardly any outcry that, you know, that data, that information will belong
08:18to a Chinese company, which is a little bit bizarre to me.
08:23I do like, you know, the Chinese companies I've always worked with have been tremendous
08:29partners.
08:29But I do wish that the data and everything stayed in this country.
08:34And there's secondary reasons why you really need it in this country.
08:40And that's the, you know, the people that learn how to build robots, they go on and they
08:46build other robots.
08:48And it becomes an ecosystem of robotics, which is one of the things iRobot created.
08:53And you need that to happen in this in this country.
08:56And when things start in this country and then go to China, you know, it happened in a bunch
09:01of fields, solar panels, batteries.
09:05They take the small companies when they find it hard to succeed and help them and get them
09:11to go to that next level.
09:14Helen, we're nearly out of time, but I do want to circle back to that point you made
09:17about humanoid robots, not necessarily being the be all and end all.
09:22And I know that your latest product is very not human as well.
09:25Where do you see the action heading in terms of robotics in the next couple of years?
09:29Well, I think there will be humanoids eventually.
09:33I'm not sure the current generation is the generation that's going to push them out, out
09:39there as products.
09:41But I see so many different areas that are succeeding in warehouses, fulfillment centers, manufacturing.
09:50There's almost an industry I can't think of that isn't becoming roboticized.
09:55And it's a hugely exciting time in the robotics field.
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