Shares in shoe brand Allbirds rise 580% after it pivots from footwear to AI

Comments

Comment by shantocv 1 day ago

This feels like the 2026 version of companies adding "blockchain" to their name in 2017 and watching the stock jump. The shoe business was real — they had a genuinely differentiated product with the merino wool. Pivoting from a physical product with brand recognition to "AI" when you have no obvious AI expertise or data moat is a tough sell beyond the initial hype pop.

Comment by phamilton 16 hours ago

Isn't this just a SPAC?

The shoe business was sold, a shell of a public company was left, and it essentially acquired a brand new company focused on AI.

Comment by benj111 41 minutes ago

That isn't how I read the article?

But then a company whose only asset is it has a listing should be able to go up by 580% doing not very much.

Comment by pseudohadamard 7 hours ago

Yup, that's exactly what it is.

Comment by pseudohadamard 7 hours ago

You can do something similar with any surplus kittens you need to rehome. Don't tell people they're friendly, don't scratch the furniture, are litterbox-trained, and get on well with children and other pets, just say they're quantum AI kittens and they'll practically fly out the door.

Incidentally, if anyone would like to buy a quantum AI Yugo, DM me.

Comment by flextheruler 1 day ago

It honestly seems worse.

Comment by nikolay 12 hours ago

Absolutely ridiculous. Their shoes business was going in the wrong direction - they started to offer plasticwear - and recently had to return a lot of merchandise as they didn't bother to put on the wool brand's website that their socks are mostly plastic. Their original hit was gone, replaced by lackluster versions. By the way, the shoes were made in South Korea.

Comment by damnesian 5 hours ago

I've been expecting- maybe just haven't seen- some coincidental divestment. As in, they knew what the effect would be, just looking to make a little money on a doomed venture.

Comment by lagniappe 1 day ago

Reminds me of Long Island Blockchain

Comment by junto 22 hours ago

Reminds me of dotcom era pets.com

Comment by sph 16 hours ago

Still waiting for pets.ai before calling the top

Comment by pipes 1 day ago

Exactly what I tought

Comment by ChicagoBoy11 1 day ago

Am I the only one who couldn't tell whether this was real or not for a good long while? I legitimately wondered whether the BBC site might have been hacked. I just simply cannot find a way to make sense of just about anything in the news story; I had just assumed it would go under and that's that. Why would someone who has that kind of money to invest put it into this pivot as opposed to a completely fresh, new effort? What's the efficiency I'm not seeing?

Comment by crazygringo 1 day ago

Me too. It had me genuinely wondering if the Brits have their own version of April Fools in the middle of the month.

Forget the AI -- I'm just as shocked to see that shares went from $500+ in 2021 to below $3 this year. That's insane. I had to verify it's actually real.

I thought this was just a normal shoe company that had invented a cool look with some good branding.

Comment by benj111 35 minutes ago

TBF the USians elected an April fools president...

But no, we have the same April fools as everyone else. But if it were a special April fools, I could fool you by telling you it isn't....

Comment by quickthrowman 1 day ago

> I'm just as shocked to see that shares went from $500+ in 2021 to below $3 this year. That's insane. I had to verify it's actually real.

Well, sort of. They did a 20 for 1 reverse split in 2024, and possibly that wasn’t the only reverse split. That means the stock peaked at $25 (pre reverse split) and dipped below $0.25 (if the reverse split didn’t happen) so they did a reverse split to stay listed on the NYSE, as you need $1/share minimum price or something like that.

Number of shares and share price are completely arbitrary, FWIW.

Comment by extraduder_ire 23 hours ago

Don't most stock charting websites backdate splits to show the price as it would be with current stock?

Comment by t0mas88 12 hours ago

Yes, that's how you get a $500 historic price. It wasn't at 500 at the time, but due to the reverse split the current price is correct relative to a $500 historic price.

Comment by gehwartzen 1 day ago

The market in general has gone completely off the rails

Comment by zardo 1 day ago

It's already listed, so they can get retail gamblers to buy in on day one.

Comment by vrganj 1 day ago

There's no efficiency. Markets are a casino where people with no domain knowledge and automated systems make bets.

If people stop betting on your thing, it behooves you to rebrand it into whatever the magic beans of the moment are.

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by heywire 1 day ago

This new season of HBO’s Silicon Valley is wild!

Comment by pedalpete 21 hours ago

Not as funny as the original, but available everywhere, instead of just HBO.

Comment by ninju 1 day ago

They should go ahead and drop one the L's from their name and become ALBirds and further embrace the lunacy :-)

Comment by Terr_ 1 day ago

Then also make the second letter lowercase, to further bait the irrationally exuberant depending on font: "AlBird" versus "AIBird".

Comment by gehwartzen 1 day ago

“AlBirds, they are in fact real [shoes]!”

Comment by ChrisArchitect 1 day ago

[dupe]

Discussions:

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

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47778762

Comment by dnnddidiej 1 day ago

Kodak moment!

Comment by gehwartzen 1 day ago

[dead]

Comment by vrganj 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by therobots927 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by Bombthecat 1 day ago

We are not at peak. More companies will follow claiming to be AI whatever. If like twenty or more followed, then we are close to peak

Comment by PepperdineG 1 day ago

I blame W.H.F. Talbot