In this episode of Burning the Ships, I sit down with Joe Jones—the inventor of the Roomba and one of the most fascinating engineers and thinkers I’ve ever had on the show. Joe’s story isn’t just about robotics; it’s about curiosity, patience, resilience, and spending decades chasing meaningful work without ever obsessing over fame, money, or an “exit.”

Joe walks through his journey from growing up in a small rural town, to discovering robots at MIT’s AI Lab, to getting fired for building a robot vacuum cleaner—twice—before finally helping launch what would become one of the most successful consumer robots of all time. We talk about why most ideas are bad, why passion matters more than payoff, why price matters more than technology, and why Joe has never believed in the concept of retirement.

This conversation goes far beyond Roomba. It’s about building things that matter, sticking with ideas for years when there’s no guarantee of success, filtering out shiny distractions, and finding work so meaningful you never want to stop doing it.

Key Talking Points of the Episode

00:00 Joe’s philosophy on ideas: assume they’re bad until proven otherwise

01:00 Introducing Joe Jones, inventor of the Roomba

02:00 Growing up in rural Missouri with a passion for the future

03:30 Discovering robotics at MIT’s AI Lab in the early 1980s

05:00 Building the first robot vacuum cleaner as a personal side project

08:50 Rebuilding the robot vacuum concept years later—and getting buy-in

10:20 Launching Roomba in 2002 and creating the first affordable home robot

12:00 Why price—not technology—was the real breakthrough

14:30 Managing creativity vs. economics when building products

17:30 Why most robotics attempts failed before Roomba succeeded

20:00 The importance of leadership that understands creative people

29:45 Joe’s contrarian take on humanoid robots and AI hype

32:00 Why demos are easy—and real products are brutally hard

33:30 Passion, persistence, and working for decades without guaranteed payoff

35:30 Why Joe never planned for retirement

38:00 Writing Dancing with the Roomba and telling the untold story

41:00 The danger of chasing shiny ideas

49:00 Advice for parents raising curious, future-focused kids

51:00 What Joe wants to build next—and why the work never ends

Quotables

“Almost all ideas are bad. Your job is to kill them as quickly as possible.”

“People don’t want robots. They want clean floors.”

“It’s easy to make a demo. It’s incredibly hard to build a product that earns its keep every day.”

“I never thought about retirement. I just want to keep doing fun, meaningful work.”

“If there’s a cheaper, simpler way to solve the problem than using a robot, that way will win.”

Links

Joe Jones – Dancing with the Roomba

https://dancingwiththeroomba.com

608B Capital

https://608bcapital.com