Allbirds announces pivot from shoes to AI, stock explodes 175%(www.cnbc.com)
74 pointsby 1vuio0pswjnm76 hours ago14 comments
  • mikeve5 hours ago
    This appears to be almost like a SPAC. Allbirds had already sold it's IP and other assets, now they raised new money and are continuing under a different name but they're still a publicly traded company.

    So it's not really shoe retailer pivots to AI but a shoe retailer selling all assets and forming a new company but uses the previous public stock listing.

    • kermatt3 hours ago
      So just starting a new and completely different company, but using an old brand name from a completely different business?
      • presbyterian3 hours ago
        They're not even using the same brand name; they sold the Allbirds name and are now "Newbird AI". I guess it's just to stay on the exchange?
        • garethspricean hour ago
          This would be my bet - filing for an IPO or even direct listing is months of SEC review, audits, underwriters, due diligence, etc. A shell with an existing ticker gets you access to that sweet retail investor cash almost immediately, and with less of those pesky regulators asking if you actually have a functioning product or company.

          This is more akin to a reverse merger than a SPAC (eg. Berkshire Hathaway being a failing textile mill and WPP being a wire basket company) except it is unusual to see it happen within an existing leadership team. They sold off all their IP so figured they might as well use the shell to try and cash in on AI hype, I guess.

          • Tadpole918131 minutes ago
            Can you explain to me how this isn't considered outright fraud? The SEC has rules specifically around the lifetime of a company / ticket in terms of things like inclusion in indexes and retirement accounts, right?

            How does allowing this not simply encourage a world of, basically, stock market karma farming: making bullshit barely company companies, just to sell the ticket so they can be used to engage in a pump and dump scheme with the little wealth the working class has left?

            This domain isn't exactly my forte...

      • floatrock2 hours ago
        Basically.

        They sold the Allbirds brand and IP for $39M:

        > The company, valued at around $4 billion at its peak, sold its intellectual property and other assets two weeks ago for $39 million.

        ...used the ticker to build stock hype that will bring in another $50M:

        > The company, which according to the release will be called NewBird AI, announced a deal to raise up to $50 million in funding, expected to close in the second quarter of 2026.

        ...and is planning on using that $90M of capital to sell a few extra shovels to the marginal buyer in the latest hype market.

        > “The Company will initially seek to acquire high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware and provide access under long-term lease arrangements, meeting customer demand that spot markets and hyperscalers are unable to reliably service,” the company said in the announcement.

        This is really just picking the corpse clean... company lost 99% of value, dropping from $4B to $0.04B. This is just redirecting what little capital is left into something that might get a small return for whoever is left holding shares.

  • holtkam23 hours ago
    Someone tell me if my idea is dumb:

    You know how adding ".ai" to your company name / domain name increases your valuation an order of magnitude or whatever?

    Well has anyone tried chaining .ai's to their company name...???

    For example could x.ai increase their valuation another 5-10x by renaming themselves x.ai.ai?

    What about perplexity.ai.ai.ai?

    Seems like a low-hanging fruit for increasing valuation / attention on your company, but let me know if I'm missing something.

  • usui5 hours ago
    Pets announces pivot from Pets to Pets.com, stock explodes 1000%
    • graydoubt3 hours ago
      "Pets.com, because pets can't drive."
  • bl4ckneon5 hours ago
    Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Blockchain_Corp.

    That didn't end very well for them...

  • onychomys5 hours ago
    They keep having to update the headline as the stock goes up, it's now at "more than 300%".
  • apparent2 hours ago
    Seems weird the new name is singular ("Newbird AI") when the old name is plural. Wonder how they chose that. I can't imagine "Newbirds AI" was taken!
  • skullone5 hours ago
    What a scam
  • therobots9272 hours ago
    There was a highly anomalous spike in volume around April 1st in the stock: https://marketchameleon.com/Overview/BIRD/Summary/

    Oddly enough it barely moved the price at the time. I think it’s fair to say that this is a highly suspicious sequence of events.

  • epc3 hours ago
    Ah, yes, the Zapata Petroleum -> zap.com phase of the bubble.
  • fnimick5 hours ago
    Clearly not a bubble, though!
    • damnesian5 hours ago
      I tried suggesting this on a different forum and wow, did I get slapped down.
  • ChrisArchitect3 hours ago
    More discussion on announcement:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47778038

  • eudamoniac4 hours ago
    It's frustrating that Schwab does not allow me to buy puts for this symbol, and I haven't enabled margin for shorting because I always bought puts instead. Never seen a clearer short in my life.
    • ProjectArcturis3 hours ago
      It's not just Schwab, there aren't any options traded on BIRD. And shorting is not a guarantee. First you have to find a borrow, which if it's available probably costs >1000% annualized today. Then you have to be able to maintain that borrow, even if BIRD doubles from here.

      Based on the price action today, this seems like a short squeeze.

  • whalesalad4 hours ago
    700%*
  • SideburnsOfDoom5 hours ago
    Ah, so we have reached the "Pivot to NFTs, stock jumps" phase of the ""Pivot to AI" bubble.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2022/02/18/how-a...

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90711340/whats-happening-with-ga...

    edit and of course https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47780223 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Blockchain_Corp.