There are so many opportunities to make a bad decision in building a robot company on top of all the normal ways that entrepreneurs screw up that it is incredibly difficult to truly create value because it is so cost-sensitive.

The way that the robotics market is going to grow, at least in the home, is that we'll have a number of different special purpose robots.

In the original 'Star Wars' movie, there is a small toaster-sized and shaped robot on the Death Star that guides Stormtroopers to where they need to go. I always liked that robot because I could imagine how to build it - and it served a real purpose.

My very clear vision for the ideal Roomba is one you never see and you never touch. Our research priorities are explicitly focused on the Roomba of the future that will deliver on the promise of automatically cleaning your floor.

The ideal vacuum cleaner would be one you never see. It needs to not just be a cool gadget, but a product that cleans your floor correctly. I can imagine people having a cupboard full of robots that only come out when you need them to fulfil a specific purpose.

I believe one day nano-robots will play an important role in medicine.

Building robot versions of people is very expensive.