Amazon plans to acquire Roomba maker iRobot in a $1.7B all-cash deal; Colin Angle will remain as iRobot's CEO
Everyone's Favorite Robot Cleaning Company Financial Times : Amazon acquires Roomba maker iRobot for $1.7bn Jon Fingas / Engadget : Amazon is buying iRobot, the creator of the Roomba robot vacuum Chance Miller / 9to5Mac : Amazon acquiring Roomba makers for $1.7 billion in latest smart home push Pradeep Viswanathan / BigTechWire : Amazon to buy Roomba-maker iRobot for about $1.7 billion Phil Siarri / The PhilaVerse : Amazon to acquire Roomba maker for $1.7B PYMNTS.com : Amazon to Acquire iRobot, Maker of Roomba Robot Vacuum Katie Collins / CNET : Amazon Acquires iRobot, Makers of Roomba, in $1.7B Deal Tweets: Ron Knox / @ronmknox : 1. Hello. Amazon today announced it would pay $1.7 billion to acquire iRobot, the company behind the Roomba robotic vacuum. It may be the most dangerous, threatening acquisition in the company's history. A thread. Jathan Sadowski / @jathansadowski : People forget that a while ago Roomba got caught making highly detailed maps of people's homes and selling that information to third parties. Now that's an Amazon company. https://twitter.com/... @wagatwe : So now Bezos can have data on: - what you read - what you watch - who's outside your home - your meds - when you see doctors - what groceries you eat - how much you order out - THE LAYOUT OF YOUR HOME https://twitter.com/... @ibjiyongi : I actually gasped and said “oh no” This is actually potentially catastrophic and the Biden administration should move to block this under what remains of anti-trust law https://twitter.com/... Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : Amazon just bought iRobot, which has immense amounts of data about people's physical homes. It never ends. Congress should have passed @TomCottonAR's bill to bar big tech mergers. https://www.prnewswire.com/... @datnofact : I await the inevitable news of Amazon unilaterally handing over recorded roomba footage to the state. https://twitter.com/... Owen Williams / @ow : Sorry if this seems overly alarmist but it does make me pause given how much modern Roomba competitors actually know about your house! The new Roborock vacuums can recognize furniture and even stuff you leave on the ground! I really wouldn't want Amazon knowing that? https://twitter.com/... Raoul Pal / @raoulgmi : With Ring, Alexa and now Roomba, Amazon tracks EVERYTHING that happens inside your house (even who visits you). This is all about getting data on YOU. Google Nest too. Homes were your last data sanctuary as you put your phone down, but not now. https://twitter.com/... Colin Angle / @colinangle : iRobot's mission is to create innovative, practical products like the Roomba and iRobot OS that make customers' lives easier. Amazon shares our passion, and I'm hugely excited to see what we can build together for customers in the years ahead. https://www.prnewswire.com/... Joanna Stern / @joannastern : Told ya Astro was useless when it couldn't clean the floors! https://twitter.com/... @buccocapital : LOL. Lmao. MSFT Acquisitions. AMZN Acquisitions https://twitter.com/... Owen Williams / @ow : Alternative headline: Amazon buys company that constantly maps the inside of your home https://www.theverge.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : There is no way this should get past the FTC's new ‘all M&A is bad’ policy without being challenged. https://www.wsj.com/... Ron Miller / @ron_miller : Under Andy Jassy, the company appears to be making more strategic acquisitions. This one comes on the heels of Amazon buying One Medical. https://twitter.com/... @hypervisible : Think of the (dystopian) possibilities! Roomba contracts with 👮♀️! Roomba listening to your conversations! Roomba trying to diagnose you...The list is endless. h/t @nicholasadeleon https://press.aboutamazon.com/ ... Chaotic Goode / @laurengoode : Amazon knows what we eat, buy, watch, read, and what prescription drugs we might consume. Now it's going to have access to interior maps of our homes https://www.wired.com/... via @kharijohnson Vivek Wadhwa / @wadhwa : This should be code red for @linakhanFTC and other regulators. With Roomba, Amazon would gain private data on an unprecedented scale, with a home spying apparatus better than Big Brother and his disciple Mark Zuckerberg could ever dream about. https://twitter.com/... Matt Day / @mattmday : the joke when Amazon launched its Astro home security bot last year was that at least Roomba could vacuum while it was wandering around. Guys, I've got some news: https://www.bloomberg.com/... Dr. S.A. Applin / @anthropunk : Roomba partnering with Echo to know which room you are in, Roomba analyzing what it collects to know details of your sloughed dermis, Echo hearing you make plans and Roomba scurrying to vacuum entertainment areas of your home, Roomba refusing to vacuum w/o Echo music playing... https://twitter.com/... Matt Day / @mattmday : Amazon's big recent acquisitions, Whole Foods to Roomba: -Grocery stores -Amazon of the Middle East -Video doorbells -Online pharmacy -IT disaster recovery -Self-driving warehouse bots -Self-driving taxis -Podcast maker -Film & TV studio -Encrypted chat -Primary healthcare https://twitter.com/... @jowyang : Roomba 2023: we noticed your floors are 48% dirty with 24% traces of bacteria. We ordered Prime floor cleaner as a courtesy Roomba 2033: Amazon bot has finished your dishes, restocked fridge, and cleaned bathroom. https://techcrunch.com/... Gene Munster / @munster_gene : Amazon is the most aggressive big tech buyer following the 2022 tech wreck. Big picture; Amazon is making it clear they have ambitions beyond commerce with recent One Medical and iRobots announcements. Garrett M. Graff / @vermontgmg : Add this to Alexa, listening to you all day long, Ring, watching your front door all day long, and OneMedical, a company that knows all your secrets, and suddenly Amazon has built a pretty powerful panopticon controlled by Jeff Bezos. https://twitter.com/... Maxime Eyraud / @max_eyr : Apple: we'll know your floor plan if you create a 3D capture of your room using our $1,000+ Lidar-equipped iPhone Amazon: we know your floor plan because the company we just acquired has been dusting off your carpets for 5 years https://www.theverge.com/... Roger McNamee / @moonalice : Dear @linakhanFTC - Amazon's Alexa and Ring products are already a massive threat to civil liberties. If you allow Amazon to buy iRobot (maker of Roomba), their surveillance of homes will be a dystopian nightmare. https://www.bloomberg.com/... @privacymatters : 1/ Lots of privacy takes on Amazon acquring Roomba. That Amazon will learn the layout of homes, rooms etc. Makes me think of smart tech already in homes / of smart homes. Such as a smart speaker, lightbulb, thermostat, camera may already be labelled as ‘hallway’ ‘living room’ https://twitter.com/... @anintelhome : So Amazon acquires @iRobot and @Apple sits twiddling their thumbs on product launches and/or acquisitions to build their #SmartHome system? Yep, it baffles the mind! Stacy Mitchell / @stacyfmitchell : No to this. Amazon has initiated another alarming acquisition — iRobot, maker of the Roomba. This is part of a strategy to control the infrastructure of the smart home and gather up a ton of data about our houses and how we live in them. https://press.aboutamazon.com/ ... Mark Sigal / @netgarden : Amazon, Ring, Roomba, Alexa, One Medical, Prime Delivery...that's a LOT of behavioral and logistical data to trust one company with. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely...see how #Amazon treats its warehouse workers as emblematic on this one. https://twitter.com/... Carolina Milanesi / @caro_milanesi : Glad Amazon bought iRobot rather than Google given what has happened with Nest. A missed opportunity for Apple IMO https://twitter.com/... Ryan Nanni / @celebrityhottub : i give it 4 months until the “well it turns out your vacuum's been sending your DNA to the cops” story https://twitter.com/... Chet Faliszek / @chetfaliszek : Alexa did you automatically send the ring doorbell footage to the police for the prowler last night? No, I sent a map of your house to the police for the raid today. https://twitter.com/... @heyitsliore : Lots good privacy concerns about this deal, but also feeling the divide of home ownership this morning when I see fear that home floorplans will be shared. I'm a renter, my floorplan is always publicly available on my mega-landlord's corporate website! https://twitter.com/... David Pierce / @pierce : The government: Big Tech is too powerful! Facebook can't buy a workout app! Amazon: we own the grocery store and the doctor's office and now we also own the robot vacuum that knows the exact floor plan of your house https://www.theverge.com/... Kevin C. Tofel / @kevinctofel : Is it just me or is Amazon is getting close to the Meta line in terms of “No, I don't want you in my home” territory? https://techcrunch.com/... @spdustin : If you have a Roomba, Amazon will literally have floor maps of your home, data about the texture of flooring surfaces, the nature of the debris on your floors (dirt, dog hair, etc.), and a dataset that can predict what types of furniture you have. https://twitter.com/... Ian Bogost / @ibogost : You might know this already, but, a Rooma isn't principally a robot that vacuums your floors—it's a robot that creates maps of your house. https://twitter.com/... Mike Elgan / @mikeelgan : this sucks even more than roombas do https://twitter.com/... Casey Johnston / @caseyjohnston : If I had a roomba I'd be throwing it like a frisbee off a mountain right now https://twitter.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : (inside One Medical clinic) Dr. Roomba will see you now https://twitter.com/... Eli Pariser / @elipariser : Imagine there was a company that knew what was said in your house, what you bought, what happened on your street, and the exact floor plan and interior of your house. Now imagine there was an authoritarian government where that company is based. https://techcrunch.com/... Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis : That's a wow. Let Meta in its febrile imagination aspire to rule the metaverse. Let Musk worship his phallic graven images of midlife crisis. Amazon will be the leader in robots, in real life, on earth, now at home. https://www.wsj.com/... Stacy Mitchell / @stacyfmitchell : It's really unfortunate that Congress didn't pass the bill in the Big Tech package that banned acquisitions. There's no reason Amazon should get to buy anything. The agencies should block this deal, but if lawmakers did their job, the FTC wouldn't have to spend the resources. Brian Heater / @bheater : There is going to (rightfully) be regulatory scrutiny around Amazon's acquisition of iRobot over privacy concerns. But if the deal has half the success of its Kiva acquisition, this is a watershed moment for home robots. https://techcrunch.com/... James Vincent / @jjvincent : some additional points: - only one Roomba (the i7) has a camera. iRobot said (in 2020) that images never leave the device - irobot combines odometry data and images into maps - these maps include automatic labelling of large appliances and best-guesses of room function Van Applegate / @vbagate : They'll know your floor plan. And how messy you are. 👀 https://twitter.com/... @martinsfp : Imagining Amazon turning Roombas into Ring security robots. https://www.cnbc.com/... Alex Hern / @alexhern : Fantastic example of why my “never buy a robot hoover that connects to the internet” policy exists https://www.cnbc.com/... @irobot : Exciting news! We've signed an agreement to be acquired by Amazon. With Amazon, we look forward to inventing more for the home. https://www.prnewswire.com/... Mary Harrington / @moveincircles : Idk who needs to hear this but a dustpan and brush won't transmit your domestic layout to Jeff Bezos https://twitter.com/... Noah Kulwin / @nkulw : Cool now Amazon will know what my floor looks like https://www.prnewswire.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Unbelievably bold. “Alexa, give me a company with fast-growing sales that we can flout and test new antitrust legislative muscles in US and EU while positioning it as tech and AI innovation.” https://www.cnbc.com/... @litcapital : what is the strategic rationale for Amazon acquiring the company that makes Roombas James Vincent / @jjvincent : very big news for the home automation space, and worrying from a privacy angle given iRobot's push in recent years to map your home using Roomba's sensors. who owns all this data now? https://twitter.com/... M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler : “Alexa, you missed a spot.” https://twitter.com/... Nathan Hager / @nhageradio : “Alexa, you missed a spot.” *AMAZON TO BUY IROBOT FOR $61/SHR IN CASH @bullishrippers : Amazon's $AMZN largest acquisitions 1) Whole Foods: $13.7 Billion 2) MGM Studios: $8.5B 3) One Medical: $3.9B 4) IRobot: $1.7B 5) Zappos: $1.2B 6) Zoox: $1.2B 7) PillPack: $1B 8) Ring: $1B 9) Twitch: $970 Million 10) Kiva: $775M Cale G Weissman / @caleweissman : amazon acquires irobot, will soon have the floor plans of every roomba owner's home https://www.businesswire.com/ ... @buccocapital : ha amazon buying roomba cause they know they literally aren't allowed to buy anything else they're like fuck it maybe lina will let us buy the vacuum company @bongcapital : Really looking forward to the inevitable FTC lawsuit to block this deal on the grounds that Amazon is hoovering up too many companies. @bongcapital : I am once again, asking companies to please respect Merger Monday. *AMAZON TO BUY IROBOT FOR $61/SHR IN CASH