An AI Company You Can Wear Wthout Socks

Say what you will about AllBirds’ corporate tailspin: You gotta respect the sheer chutzpah of the sneakers-to-AI pivot.

On Wednesday, two weeks after selling off all its assets in an ignominious fire sale, the faded apparel darling announced it would abandon all environmental and sartorial pretenses and start renting out computing power, instead. Just five years ago, AllBirds was valued at $4 billion and beloved by the likes of both Barack Obama and the sorts of tech bros who still vote Democrat. Now, it plans to rent out specialized chips it does not currently possess, and may in fact be unable to obtain, in an industry where it has no preexisting relationships, expertise or other claim to fame.

This is, I would argue, the type of brazen, self-deluded “pivot” that could only be accomplished by a white man: a rich white man with woolen sneakers on his feet and dreams of corporate reinvention in his head. Imagine, imagine, what you or I might achieve with that level of unearned confidence! Tomorrow, Links could become a fashion Substack despite my irreparably basic, midwestern taste. (I recently bought Allbirds for Jason and still think they’re … fine, actually.)

But that metaphor doesn’t go far enough, does it? Because in it, I — a newsletter-writer — would still be writing a newsletter. And AllBirds, a maker of sneakers, will make sneakers no longer. So in order for this hypothetical to hold, I’d need to spontaneously declare myself an astronaut or a Supreme Court justice or an emergency physician … and someone, someones, would have to believe it. Because as of this writing, AllBirds’ stock price is still up 351% from before the so-called “pivot.”

I’ll say this for America, at least: It’s still a place where — with enough money, a couple buzzwords and a public listing — you can (pretend to) be anything. Or so a little NewBirdie told me.

by Caitlin Dewey, Links I Would Gchat |  Read more:

Image: uncredited

[ed. Too funny. I love my Allbirds but this has to be a joke, right? Right?]

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"Following its prior announcement that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the Allbirds brand and footwear assets to American Exchange Group, which intends to continue to build on Allbirds’ legacy and deliver compelling products to Allbirds’ customers (the “Asset Sale”), Allbirds, Inc. (Nasdaq: BIRD) (the "Company") today announced the execution of a definitive agreement with an institutional investor for a $50 million convertible financing facility (the “Facility”). The Facility, which is expected to close during the second quarter of 2026, will enable the Company to pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure, with a long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider. In connection with this pivot, the Company anticipates changing its name to “NewBird AI.” [...]

NewBird AI expects to use initial capital from the Facility to acquire high-performance GPU assets, which will be deployed to serve customers requiring dedicated access to AI compute capacity. NewBird AI’s long-term vision is to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider. Over time, the Company intends to grow its neocloud platform by expanding its compute and service offerings, deepening partnerships with operators and customers, and evaluating strategic M&A opportunities."