Allbirds' Move To AI Has Echoes of the Dot-Com Frenzy
- Reference: 0181812074
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/04/20/1647258/allbirds-move-to-ai-has-echoes-of-the-dot-com-frenzy
- Source link:
> Allbirds is pivoting to artificial intelligence. The San Francisco brand, whose wool running shoes were once the sneaker du jour among the tech crowd, [1]announced last week that it was expanding into AI computing infrastructure. The bizarre strategic shift was immediately greeted with a surprising frenzy on Wall Street, where shares of Allbirds soared 582% last Wednesday before dropping the next day. [...] Of course, the absurdity of Allbirds' situation echoed familiar Silicon Valley tropes -- from the endless startup pivots of the 2010s to the more recent boom-and-bust cycles of arbitrarily valued crypto coins. But it immediately [2]reminded me of the marketing ploys of the dot-com crash . After all, some of the more iconic fails ended up being retailers such as Pets.com, Webvan, etc., riding the web wave with little to show for it beyond terrible margins.
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> One particular comparison from that period stands out as relevant to Allbirds: Zap.com. The holding company behind it, Zapata Corp., had a long and convoluted history, but was essentially selling fish-oil products by the time it decided to reinvent itself as an internet portal. It amassed a variety of web properties -- in media, e-commerce, gaming and so on -- and even once tried to acquire the search engine Excite. Spoiler alert: Zap flopped. Jen Heck, then a young employee at one of Zap's up-and-coming portfolio entities, remembers how quickly the hype of that web 1.0 turned to hell. As absurd as Zapata's pivot sounds today, it seemed feasible during the excitement of the internet revolution. "We went from like, 'Wow, this life thing is just so easy,' to it all ending so suddenly," Heck recalls. The ones who survived that tech bubble, she says, actually had differentiated products and the right creative thinkers building them -- and weren't just cynically jumping on the latest hot trend. "'Internet' was the magic word then, and 'AI' is the magic word now," Heck says.
[1] https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/04/15/1646259/struggling-shoe-retailer-allbirds-pivots-to-ai-stock-explodes-more-than-700
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-04-20/allbirds-pivot-to-ai-stirs-memory-of-dot-com-boom-and-bust
And blockchain hype ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also reminiscent of blockchain hype ...
Remember when a [1]tea company added blockchain to its name [cnbc.com] and its stock soared 200%?
Later, they were [2]investigated and charged by the SEC [wikipedia.org].
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-cap-adds-blockchain-to-name-and-stock-soars.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Blockchain_Corp.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, more like blockchain hype. Blockchain was not necessary to most business models whereas it made sense for business to move their models online.
Zapata Corp... (Score:2)
Oh man... that's the George Bush company. They still do the fish oil thing. But what I want to know is why they pivoted from petroleum to fish oil. That's the one nobody can explain.
Re: (Score:2)
Better than snake oil I suppose.
It's Happening (Score:2)
I, for one, am looking forward to the Shoe Event Horizon and evolving into a bird person. Throw off your shoes! Take to the skies!
Re: (Score:3)
When you become a Bird Person, stay away from a Tammy. She's bad for you.
Bird, as it turns out, is not the word (Score:2)
> I, for one, am looking forward to the Shoe Event Horizon and evolving into a bird person.
The Bird scooters in my town have been looking pretty shabby ever since they went under new ownership after their bankruptcy. I'd recommend evolving into a Lime person instead.
That Bird should've pivoted to AI a long time ago, too. Then the scooters could say things like "Your mom's ass is so fat, when she goes into the store she's still blocking the sidewalk - just like your lousy parking job!"
Anybody remember the M&A mania of the 80's? (Score:2)
Companies just started merging with or acquiring other firms for no apparent reason. Tecnicon was one of the original firms building hospital lab equipment. If you've ever had a 'Chem 12', 'Chem 24' or similar lab profile, those were developed by Technicon. Nearly every lab in the US had Technicon gear.
The 80's hit and Technicon was aquired by Revlon and Pantry Pride Grocery. WTF???
This crap with AI smacks of the same nonsense.
Some pivots can be successful (Score:1)
Well before pets.com, small textile firm was bought out in a hostile takeover. The new owners pivoted the company into an investment/holding company.
While not as big a Apple, it is pretty big in terms of market capitalization.
You [1]may have heard of it [wikipedia.org].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkshire_Hathaway#History
OK maybe it is timeto read up on shorting stocks. (Score:2)
Saw this on the business channel, Selling Shoes to doing AI Infrastructure, yea! I can see where their expertise was developed.
The real head scratcher comes when you hear someone gave them a new infusion of cash.
Re: (Score:2)
yeah, head scratcher Royale. Not just the weird disconnect. It's that a failed company somehow sees the goal line in a field where they have no experience whatsoever.
What is Allbirds? (Score:2)
Is it some counterpoint to the "Birds aren't real" meme?
Allbirds should be investigated (Score:2)
by the SEC to make sure that this wasn't a pump and dump scheme perpetrated by management.
You know the AI crash is near when companies pivot into AI when things aren't going so well in their established line of business.
AI is overbought, and there is going to be a lot of companies "Buying the Farm" when it does crash. Just like the Dot-com bubble, but likely worse.
Stock ticker (Score:2)
This is just a lot of investors buying a low priced company so they can use the stock ticker to pivot into a different area. Its cheaper and quicker than trying to register a new company.
Not a pivot, a bodysnatcher (Score:2)
From what I understand, Allbirds sold off almost all their capital assets two weeks before, so it was just an empty husk with debts and pre-made paperwork. The last thing it sold-off was that pre-made paperwork, to some other company with a very different mission and business plan who measured it was cheaper to buy someone else's legal homework than doing it themselves.
I was at ground-zero for another company that wanted to get on the NYSE but they weren't American. They found an American corporation that
Why do I care (Score:2)
What a shoe company I've never heard of thinks of AI? Please explain to me why the position of this San Francisco shoe company should be important to me?
Re:Why do I care (Score:4, Informative)
They failed as a shoe company and they decided to pivot in to the AI space and their stock grew %700 that day. This is reminiscent of the dotcom bubble and when it burst. Nobody asked you to care about their thoughts on AI. In fact the point is; why would they have valuable thoughts on AI? They wouldn't, and there is no valid reason their stock went up %700 percent other than hype train.
Re: (Score:2)
Because a shoe company is shifting to A freaking I. That's messed up. A shoe company should not have any similarity to an AI company. Its like a Pizza company shifting to Cutting tool manufacturing.
Re: (Score:2)
A shoe factory can't easily pivot to AI, but they're not a shoe factory. Many American companies selling a branded product line act more like IP holdings and logistics businesses, with the actual manufacturing taking place overseas.
Realistically, the flaw in their scheme is mostly that the AI gold rush isn't likely to be profitable, not the act of pivoting to something else. Most of these type of businesses act like private equity firms anyway, so the actual end product can be anything they believe is wor
Re: (Score:2)
Da Fuk? First of all, thats not what Allbirds was. It designed. marketed and sold shoes that were very different in material and shape than normal shoes, so they were not just a logistics company, but had some real manufacturing know how aboard as well. But thats neither here nor there. A shoe factory would at least has a building space with power and water supplied. which is ironically the one thing allbirds doesn't have.
Re: (Score:2)
Cause this means we're getting closer and closer to RAM and storage returning to normal prices.