181–190 of 213 posts
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IRobot says it was the EU which killed the deal: https://media.irobot.com/2024-01-29-Amazon-and-iRobot-agree-...
The article claims EU didn't challenge the deal, only requested information about the market and possible unfair practices. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_...
> Amazon's proposed acquisition of iRobot has no path to regulatory approval in the European Union ...
Hard for me to understand how the consumer was protected by preventing Amazon from acquiring them. Only for Chinese firm to get for cheap in bankruptcy. But maybe I’m not educated enough in socialism to understand the nuances
Why aren't any American firms interested in buying it cheap?
"We are pleased that Amazon and iRobot have abandoned their proposed transaction." https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/...
We know the FTC blocked the deal. What is this quote supposed to be showing us?
How Lina Khan Killed iRobot
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The point is that "sold to Amazon" or "sold to chinese competitors" being the only options is a false narrative. There was also the "do a good job" option which is being conveniently omitted by people who want to blame the FTC.
Sorry, can you explain the "do a good job" option in more detail please? How should they have been run differently to generate more profit?
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Why the price would be lower? Presumably the price was already agreed upon. Having a provision in the contract that the price is reduced if this argument is made to the antitrust authorities makes no sense. I now realized that I recently saw some old tweets from this guy where he first opposed this merger and then celebrated the cancellation of the deal. So it seems he's just grasping at straws to look less like an i…
> Why the price would be lower? Renegotiate the deal by threatening to walk away - or actually walking away[1] and buying the pieces from the bankruptcy sale. 1. Which Musk tried and failed to do when Twitter sued for specific performance. I suspect a company that's going out of business is far less fiesty.
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Why aren't any American firms interested in buying it cheap?
Because Lina Khan will block it as long as iRobot still has value? Her entire vision is just destroy corporate values.
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Exactly this. If they had been innovating in vacuum technology then maybe this article would have a point. But they were building stuff for the military and for space, and there's a good reason investors wanted them to get out of that because it was sucking up money and not resulting in better vacuum cleaners.
Well it's 2025, we've just spent the better half of the year discussing the bitter lesson. It seems clear solving more general problem is key to innovation.
“what is it about capitalism you don’t understand?” This question, asked by the person wanting to not put capital into investing further in the company’s lucrative core competency, instead favoring dividends depriving capital and a slow death milking a product facing ever steeper competition. Capitalism has some awful failure modes, but I’m not sure what system of economics was on display in this case, but it doesn’t…
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No one ever forced any company to work with China. They all went to China over decades because it was cheaper and made more profits, knowing full well there’d be technological transfer since it was always China’s goal and even explicit in contracts and agreements. Being surprised now that profits became technology transfer and China is now a real competitor is useless. They knew it, just didn’t think the Chinese coul…
Oh, for sure, I'm just highlighting that it's not like they're playing on a level field. The US marketplace is self defeating with asymmetric regulations, unenforceable patent and IP knowledge transfer with countries like China that just ignore it, effectively, with zero accountability. It's not all external though, they could have had a much better leadership team and used all sorts of things in their favor early on…
The problem is that US patent law stopped technological advancement. Why innovate if you can buy some patents, hire talented lawyers, and have them do their magic? It's strange that Chinese products changed from "cheap knock-offs" to "global leadership in innovation" and nobody stopped and asked themselves what exactly made US companies just give up on innovation.