Allbirds, the shoe company that couldn't sell enough wool sneakers, announced on March 30 that it's becoming an artificial intelligence computing provider. The company has closed nearly all its retail stores and previously announced plans to sell off assets. Its stock price has crashed over 95% from its 2021 IPO peak. Now it's an AI play. If that sounds absurd, you're not alone. Hacker News commenters and financial analysts see a classic pump-and-dump scheme, using a defunct company's stock listing to capitalize on AI hype.
The leadership tells you everything. CEO Joe Vernachio came from Timberland. Before that, VF Corporation. His career is footwear and apparel, period. Co-founders Tim Brown and Joey Zwillinger built their resumes in industrial design, professional soccer, and renewable energy supply chains. None of these people have built or run computing infrastructure. None have technical backgrounds in AI. When your entire executive team's expertise is selling shoes, announcing you're now an AI company strains credulity.
Bloomberg's Austin Carr drew explicit parallels to the dot-com boom. A YouTube analysis from Wall Street Millennial breaks down the mechanics of how this move functions as a stock manipulation tactic. This is what late-stage hype cycles look like. Shell companies and failing businesses latch onto whatever technology narrative has momentum, hoping to pump their valuation before reality catches up. We saw it with blockchain. We're seeing it again with AI scams. The difference is that this time the company used to make sustainable sneakers.