71–80 of 213 posts
> Part of that collapse was a result of a phenomenon where financiers would force technology companies to stop innovating. Here's the thing: not every company needs to do deep tech innovation, and not every company should. The financiers were almost certainly correct that iRobot would make more money focusing on selling vacuum cleaners, not developing military/space robots on the side. Building fancy military and spa…
> Part of that collapse was a result of a phenomenon where financiers would force technology companies to stop innovating. Here's the thing: not every company needs to do deep tech innovation, and not every company should. The financiers were almost certainly correct that iRobot would make more money focusing on selling vacuum cleaners, not developing military/space robots on the side. Building fancy military and spa…
when and how did she do that exactly?
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/05012...
"We are pleased that Amazon and iRobot have abandoned their proposed transaction... The Commission’s investigation revealed significant concerns about the transaction’s potential competitive effects. The FTC will not hesitate to take action in enforcing the antitrust laws to ensure that competition remains robust."
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/01/...
"Amazon and robot vacuum maker iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) said Monday they would end their plans to merge in the face of opposition from EU and U.S. antitrust regulators."
https://www.investing.com/news/economy/amazon-roombaparent-i...
> “In my trips to Wall Street,” Dyer told the panel, “one of my analyst friends took me to lunch one day and said, ‘Joe, you have to get iRobot out of the defense business. It’s killing your stock price.’ And I countered by saying ‘Well, what about the importance of DARPA and leading-edge technology? What about the stability that sometimes comes from the defense industry? What about patriotism?’ And his response was,…
What is the current AI/data center mega-boom if not forgoing short-term extraction for long-term value creation?
Short term extraction.
The long term value is in AI research not scaling LLMs.
A huge fraction of the knee-jerk reactions here seem to miss the key point that the post is trying to get across: > In the mid-2010s, during Furman’s tenure running economic policy under Obama, the company sold its defense business, offshored production, and slashed research, a result of pressure from financiers on Wall Street. > Mesdag engaged in a proxy fight to wrest control of the company from its engineering fou…
We'd have almost nothing if it weren't for university partnerships and corporate R&D way back when. There's no way to accomplish this now except to stay private.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a single entity that contains multitudes. Some of those multitudes have contradictory intentions. Just like you. When it happens to a person we call it "cancer".
Typically we don't say that someone with cancer is slowly committing suicide. Technically correct, perhaps, but it needlessly applies central autonomy where it doesn't really exist.
To be honest the Roomba sucked and got eaten alive by better chinese competitors. I bought a top of the line expensive Roomba years ago and ended up switching to neato a year later, because I would just come home and it would be stuck on something.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given how many people are getting rich from the inflated stock prices of every AI-adjacent company right now, including the ones with no obvious path to profitability, I could make the argument that they're already in a short term extraction phase. (I'm also not sure if putting a significant % of the population out of work will create long term value to society.)
The stocks are inflated because Wall Street believes current $$$$$ capital investments will create massive long-term value!!
Clearly not. The stock market has a correction at least every few years. So Wall Street only believes they can sell the stock for higher within a few years. Not very long term is it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is probably true. But Roomba sucked in the early 2000's too. They never got better.
I believe the author's thesis is that if they had invested in innovation over a couple decades, the product probably would have sucked less.
In many cases (I suspect this is one of them) there is room for multiple bad guys. Why couldn't the FTC, Roomba Management, Wall Street, China, etc. all be at fault? Seems like it fits the evidence nicely.
A huge fraction of the knee-jerk reactions here seem to miss the key point that the post is trying to get across: > In the mid-2010s, during Furman’s tenure running economic policy under Obama, the company sold its defense business, offshored production, and slashed research, a result of pressure from financiers on Wall Street. > Mesdag engaged in a proxy fight to wrest control of the company from its engineering fou…
> Thing is, if you slash research And if you dump your defence contracts you may have trouble paying for research.