Why not let Amazon take a stab at turning things around, then? It's better that they fail? I don't get it.
The point the article is making is that iRobot's bad decisions are the reason the company was failing. Blaming regulators for a poor acquisition outcome may be fair, but they were a very minor part of the outcome.
I now realized that I recently saw some old tweets from this guy where he first opposed this merger and then celebrated the cancellation of the deal. So it seems he's just grasping at straws to look less like an idiot.
Renegotiate the deal by threatening to walk away - or actually walking away[1] and buying the pieces from the bankruptcy sale.
1. Which Musk tried and failed to do when Twitter sued for specific performance. I suspect a company that's going out of business is far less fiesty.
The buyer and purchaser have to agree on which of the 2 options they publicly present to their shareholders and regulators - Amazon wouldn't be fooled because they had access to the financials and had its own judgement on viability (which may not be material Amazon's plans). However, the approach would decide the corresponding offer, and typically wouldn't be a retrospective decision, but would lock-in the higher or lower from the start.
- tbh, I think the Amazon deal doesn't matter much in the long run. The damage had been done earlier.
- why give Bezos any more free money? He's already rich enough.
The existing Roomba revenue stream probably doesn't matter. The expertise or maybe the brand (not a great brand imho) aligns with some company priority.