Wall Street Ruined the Roomba and Then Blamed Lina Khan - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46320508 - December 2025
We explained at the time how Ms. Warren and progressives in the Biden Administration thwarted Amazon’s attempt to buy iRobot in 2022. They claimed the $1.7 billion acquisition would unfairly augment Amazon’s lead in robotics and home devices. They also said the Roomba would enable Amazon to hoover up data and spy on Americans.
Amazon is “‘almost universally recognized’ as the leader in warehouse and fulfillment robotics space,” Ms. Warren and other progressives wrote to Biden Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan in September 2022. The deal “would open up a new market to Amazon’s abuses.” Heaven forefend Amazon would use robots to make chores less laborious, as it has for warehouse work.
“Amazon stands to gain access to extremely intimate facts about our most private spaces that are not available through other means, or to other competitors,” leftwing groups wrote to the Biden FTC. They omitted that iRobot’s main competitors were Chinese companies, which were fast stealing market share. Beijing wants to dominate robotics.
In January 2024, Amazon and iRobot called off the deal amid opposition from Ms. Khan’s FTC and Europe’s antitrust regulators. The Biden FTC issued a statement saying it was “pleased.” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy quipped that regulators trusted Chinese firms “more than they do Amazon.” Less pleased are the U.S. workers who subsequently lost their jobs.'
