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How I Built This with Guy Raz
How I Built This with Guy Raz

iRobot: Colin Angle. How The Roomba Became a Household Icon

April 13, 2026 • 1h 3m

Summary

⏱️ 13 min read

Overview

Colin Angle co-founded iRobot in 1990 with the dream of bringing robots into everyday life. After 12 years of surviving on government and military contracts, the company launched the Roomba in 2002, creating the consumer robotics category. The product became a cultural phenomenon, selling tens of millions of units and achieving nearly 70% global market share. However, rising competition from Chinese manufacturers and a blocked Amazon acquisition led to iRobot's eventual sale to a Chinese company in 2024, ending Angle's 34-year journey as CEO.

The Origins of iRobot: From MIT Lab to Startup

Colin Angle's journey into robotics began serendipitously when he followed a friend to apply for a summer job at Rod Brooks' MIT robotics lab. After writing for an hour about things he'd built, from Lego guns to canoes, he got the job. This led to working on revolutionary robots like Genghis, a six-legged insect-like robot that could navigate terrain using just 256 bytes of RAM. When Brooks proposed starting a company based on behavior control, Angle immediately volunteered to run it, launching iRobot in 1990.

  • Colin applied to Rod Brooks' MIT robotics lab and spent an hour writing about things he'd built, realizing this might be the place for him
  • The lab ran on a unique philosophy - robotics as a toolkit rather than just humanoid machines
  • Genghis robot successfully climbed rugged terrain using an 8-bit microprocessor with only 256 bytes of RAM
  • When Rod Brooks proposed starting a robot company, Colin immediately said 'I'm in. I'll run it'
" We humans were promised robots. "
" Robotics isn't a thing, it's a toolkit, was an early lesson I was taught because when you say robot to most people, they think humanoid. "

Survival Mode: Building a Business Without a Business Model

For the first six and a half years, iRobot lived hand-to-mouth, never starting a month with enough money to make payroll. They survived by selling wheeled, tracked, and legged robots to companies like Mitsubishi and Boeing for AI research, charging $5,000-$10,000 and using half the payment upfront to buy parts. The breakthrough came from a unique business model where they'd work at cost on projects, only sharing in value if something successful emerged. This allowed them to partner with major corporations while building expertise.

  • iRobot didn't take venture capital until year eight, surviving purely on product sales and contracts
  • For six and a half years, the company never started a month with enough money in the bank to make payroll
  • From day one, everyone asked when they'd build a robot vacuum cleaner, but iRobot had no idea how to make it affordable
  • They invented origami robots made from bent sheet metal as an ingenious way to build machines inexpensively
" When are you going to clean my floor? Wait, when you would meet people, they'd say, Oh, when is Rosie, like from the Jetsons, going to be in my house? "

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