From that, they had 13 straight years of profitable net income starting in 2009. Rough recently because they got eaten up by cheaper upstarts; happens to almost everyone eventually. But clearing several hundred million cumulative in net income over a decade+ (peaking 2018-2020, so they were consistently growing from 2009 to 2020 even) is far from "were they ever profitable" territory. They don't have pre-2009 there, but from some other googling it looks like they were profitable by when he left in 2008 after their 2005 IPO. So he was there from inception to IPO and millions-a-year-profitability, and then you're discounting that because 12 years after he left some companies in China had better copies. Building something for 15 years to IPO isn't some VC pump and dump scam, it's harder.
If that's not success you have a ridiculous bar. "So for me the guy never had a real success" - get out of here, do your googling before making claims like that.
Not every business loses 95% of their market cap in 3 years. Many companies bleed out slowly as they struggle to retain their market share in the face of new competition. This is normal. It's not normal for a business to just collapse out of nowhere.
Did shareholders and investors collectively make money from the whole ordeal? Looking briefly at the numbers, it looks like they didn't. During the profitable years IRobot made $639 million (sum total) but they lost -$737 in the collapse that followed. No dividends were paid either during the good years. Shareholders were left holding the bag.
Building a business from nothing to IPO is a real accomplishment and I won't diminish that. However, if a business collapses and incinerates more money than it has ever made during the sum of all profitable years calling it a "real success" is a bit of a stretch.
Thanks for elucidating what I failed to do. That was my only point. Someone said he created a number of wild successful companies. iRobot in my eyes was a segment creator which is awesome but it was/is never a wild success. He was also one of 3 founders and is not credited for the first iteration of the roomba.
Sorry I hit a nerve, it’s easier to share an opinion without telling people to get out of here though shame on you. The adjusted ebitda numbers I was looking at either had it below or near zero hence I did not really consider them a financial success. He was one of 3 founders and another individual invented the first iteration of the roomba. I am not saying he is a failure but the person I was replying to stated he was “wildly successful” with three companies. I saw iRobot as a category creator but never capturing the market and no idea how you could say the other two are wildly successful can you share how? Otherwise get out of here.
https://macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IRBT/irobot/gross-prof...
From that, they had 13 straight years of profitable net income starting in 2009. Rough recently because they got eaten up by cheaper upstarts; happens to almost everyone eventually. But clearing several hundred million cumulative in net income over a decade+ (peaking 2018-2020, so they were consistently growing from 2009 to 2020 even) is far from "were they ever profitable" territory. They don't have pre-2009 there, but from some other googling it looks like they were profitable by when he left in 2008 after their 2005 IPO. So he was there from inception to IPO and millions-a-year-profitability, and then you're discounting that because 12 years after he left some companies in China had better copies. Building something for 15 years to IPO isn't some VC pump and dump scam, it's harder.
If that's not success you have a ridiculous bar. "So for me the guy never had a real success" - get out of here, do your googling before making claims like that.