A rough week for hardware companies
iRobot, Luminar, and Rad Power Bikes were very different companies, but they faced some similar challenges.
iRobot
‘It felt so wrong’: Colin Angle on iRobot, the FTC, and the Amazon deal that never was
The iRobot founder opens up about the 18-month regulatory process that he says doomed the Roomba maker — and what it means for American innovation.
From Roombas to e-bikes, why are hardware startups going bankrupt?
The hardware world had a brutal week, with iRobot, Luminar, and Rad Power Bikes all filing for bankruptcy. Each company faces its own mix of tariff pressures, supply chain issues, and shifting markets, but together they tell a larger story about the challenges of building physical products in an era of global trade tensions and cheap overseas competition. From […]
How iRobot lost its way home
iRobot survived three decades of competition, but couldn’t survive European regulators killing its Amazon buyout. Now it’s being taken over by its own supplier in bankruptcy court.
The world is just not quite ready for humanoids yet
Famed robotics Rodney Brooks recently sounded the alarm on the amount of money going into humanoid startups. He’s not the only skeptic.