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

This episode of How I Built This tells the story of Colin Angle, co-founder of iRobot, and the journey of turning a robotics lab into one of the most iconic consumer tech products of the 21st century—the Roomba. From its origins in 1990 as a government-contract-driven robotics company building military robots like the PackBot, iRobot struggled for years to find a sustainable business model. The breakthrough came not from a military or industrial application, but from a simple, persistent dream: people wanted a robot that could clean their floors. After years of research, failed toys, and near-bankruptcy, the Roomba was born in 2002—a small, round, self-navigating vacuum that captured the public imagination. Its success was fueled by serendipity, including a viral Pepsi ad starring Dave Chappelle, and a brilliant grassroots demo strategy using Cheerios to prove its effectiveness. For over a decade, iRobot dominated the robot vacuum market, reaching $1.5 billion in revenue. But rising competition, supply chain chaos, and a failed $1.7 billion acquisition by Amazon—blocked by regulators—led to a painful decline. In 2025, iRobot was sold to a Chinese company, marking the end of an era. Yet Angle remains undeterred, stepping into stealth mode to build a new generation of AI-powered consumer robots, driven by the same passion that started it all.