Interview: MakerBot CEO Jonathan Jaglom discusses recent layoffs, retail store closures, future roadmap, more
Remaking MakerBot — MakerBot Industries is the public face of 3D printing. And whenever the public face of a nascent, closely-watched consumer technology undergoes …
Context & Ripple Effects
This interview lands one month after Jaglom's 20% layoff of roughly 100 people, and it is his public accounting for it: closing retail stores, shrinking headcount, and repositioning the roadmap around what he argues MakerBot can actually sell. As the most visible name in desktop 3D printing — and a Stratasys acquisition — its retreat is read as a verdict on the category itself.
The arc that follows validates the concern: within a year MakerBot would outsource all printer manufacturing to Jabil, ending in-house production entirely, and the postmortem on why the hype never converted cites flawed products, the closed-source backlash, and a consumer market that never materialized.
First-order effects
- About 100 employees are out and MakerBot's retail stores close, cutting the company off from the direct-to-consumer channel it had treated as proof the category was mainstream.
- Jaglom inherits a turnaround where every roadmap promise now has to justify itself against a shrunken cost base rather than growth spending.
Second-order effects
- Retreating from owned retail and US production points straight at the later move to contract manufacturing through Jabil — the consumer-facing bet being unwound piece by piece.
- Rivals and observers treat MakerBot's stumble as a signal for the whole desktop segment, the same way 3D Robotics' burn of nearly $100M and 150+ layoffs became shorthand for overfunded consumer hardware bets.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — MakerBot's retreat, 3D Robotics' collapse, Stratasys leadership churn under losses — consumer-hype hardware companies converge on outsourced manufacturing and enterprise or professional buyers, leaving little standalone consumer desktop 3D printing industry.
- Crowdfunded-and-hyped device makers face a structural repricing: backers and acquirers stop paying for distribution theater (stores, events) and start demanding unit economics, which favors contractors like Jabil over brand-led verticals.
The trend: The first wave of hype-funded consumer hardware startups is retreating from retail and in-house manufacturing toward contract production as the mass consumer market fails to arrive.