this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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Amazon terminates iRobot deal, Roomba maker to lay off 31% of staff (www.cnbc.com)
submitted 2 years ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Amazon terminates iRobot deal, Roomba maker to lay off 31% of staff::Amazon and iRobot said regulatory concerns made it impossible for the deal to move forward, sending the Roomba makers' shares plummeting.

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[–] tenextrathrills@lemmynsfw.com 13 points 2 years ago (3 children)

If it’s any consolation those people would have been laid off no matter what happened. That’s how we do things now apparently

[–] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 years ago

They fired their whole education wing when my startup was just starting to work with them (15 or something years ago). No warning just a month after starting a new project (early stem outreach type program), fired them all.

So I don’t feel bad for iRobot. Sucks for the employees though.

[–] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago

Gotta artificially drive the cost of labor down somehow. All those poor folk started getting some wild ideas that they were worth something....

[–] Copernican@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

iRobot said it would focus on margin improvements, reduce spending on research and development, and pause all work on “non-floorcare” products, including its air purifiers and robotic lawn mowers.

I doubt it. If you are stopping r&d and killing whole product lines, it makes sense to lay off the teams directly tied to those product lines. I'm guessing they needed Amazon to help them break into the market for areas outside of floor vacuums?

[–] Clent@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

They should definitely dump air purifiers. What does that have to do with robotics?

Lawn mowers however seem like a stupid drop, since a lawn is floor adjacent and the market in them is growing.

[–] tenextrathrills@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Call me a skeptic but I’d be willing to bet small amounts of money that Amazon would absolutely lay some or all of these people off after the initial onboarding.

[–] EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website 1 points 2 years ago

Fold home automation IP into Alexa brand, keep iRobot vacuum brand but increase data exfiltration, and put ads on all searches to increase sales, layoff the ~~scrubs~~ R&D team would be the natural playbook.