Allbirds Pivots to AI Infrastructure as SmartBird - AI Bubble Proven By Show Company

[00:00:00]So, coming from CNBC, and I swear this is not a joke. We are in June, so it's not April Fools' Day. Allbirds continues AI pivot with name change and CEO hire, sending stocks soaring.

[00:00:17]>> [gasps] >> Yes, because if there is one thing that we really needed in this AI boom, it's for a tennis shoe company to get into AI infrastructure.

[00:00:30]Nothing says this boom makes sense like tennis shoe companies getting into AI infrastructure.

[00:00:39]So, anyways, this is a hell of a story.

[00:00:41]I talked about this a number of months ago, and I kind of thought it was going to be a flash-in-the-pan. We saw that with the whole blockchain revolution like a decade ago, where company companies that had nothing to do with blockchain would kind of dip their toes into blockchain in order to get their their their time in their news, get 15 minutes of fame, pop their stock a little bit, and then and then the SEC would step in or somebody would step in >> [laughter] >> and the stupidity would stop. Right?

[00:01:12]There was a There was like an iced tea company. There was an iced tea company out there, and they they decided they were going to become a blockchain company for some reason. And then they got smacked because it was You're an iced tea company. Look, if you want to create a blockchain company, if the if the executives of the iced tea company want to create a another company that wants to do blockchain stuff, hey, look, that's great. That's the American way of doing things. But this this is an iced tea company.

[00:01:42]Anyways, but you know, it is 2026, so everything has got to be more absurd than what happened yesterday. And so, yeah, Allbirds is really and seriously pivoting into AI infrastructure. If you don't know Allbirds, Allbirds basically made tennis shoes for a number of years. They're like these eco-do-gooder tennis shoes. You know, everybody in Silicon Valley loved to wear these particular tennis shoes cuz they they could wear these moral and ethical tennis shoes as they destroyed the the fundamental foundations of our civilization. So, they could feel like they were good people, right? They could wave flags around. They could wear Allbirds sneakers. So, they could they could pretend that they were the good people even when they weren't. Anyways, right? At a certain point, they they they IPO'd. IPO'd. They got like a billion-dollar valuation in their IPO because, you know, the world really needs more tennis shoes, right? And then things went to hell. Basically, the value of their stock dropped by 99% and they were spinning around in circles trying to figure out what they could do next. And so, think about this, right?

[00:02:58]If you have an moral and ethical tennis shoe company, what what is synergistic to that? What could you do in order to build your business back?

[00:03:08]Could you partner with other tennis shoe companies and basically with the technology, with the products that you've created over the years, basically implement them into Nike, right? Nike's new basketball sneakers, you know, with with Allbirds eco technology inside, right? That would that would be kind of a synergistic thing. Oh, you're already making eco tennis shoes? What if you start making eco coats or eco, you know, shorts or whatever else? That would be a synergistic thing. Or or really or really if you really want to be synergistic, if you're making eco shoes and that's what you have your industry expertise in, obviously, the thing that that most closely resembles the business you currently have is AI infrastructure.

[00:04:00]So, uh so, yeah. They're They're pivoting to AI infrastructure.

[00:04:05]>> [laughter] >> I don't Oh, lordy.

[00:04:08]When's 2026 going to be over? See, my problem My problem My problem with with with with hoping for 2026 to be over is I remember when we all wanted 2020 to be over. Remember when we were all like, "I can't wait till 2020 is over."

[00:04:24]Oh, it's been over for so long.

[00:04:27]The stupidity didn't stop.

[00:04:29]And if we take a look at this, two months after its unexpected AI rebrand, Allbirds is changing its name to Smartbird and appointing a new CEO. The shoe maker >> [laughter] >> Can't say this with a straight face. The shoe maker turned AI infrastructure >> [laughter] >> Oh, this is so 2026 right now. What do you mean?

[00:04:55]>> [snorts and laughter] [gasps] >> What do you mean a shoe maker turned AI infrastructure firm? Oh, lordy.

[00:05:03]At le- At least it's amusing. Here's the Here's the thing.

[00:05:06]When you see your entire society burning to the ground, >> [laughter] >> you know, at least at least it is doing it in an amusing way.

[00:05:18]>> [gasps] >> Oh.

[00:05:20]Who thought the destruction of my empire would be so funny? It's just so Oh, lordy. It's just so funny at this point in time.

[00:05:30]>> [laughter] >> Jesus Christ.

[00:05:33]>> [gasps] >> Shoe maker turned AI infrastructure firm. That is so 2026.

[00:05:38]Named Nadia Carlstedt as CEO and board member, replacing their former CEO.

[00:05:44]Carlstedt previously led Amazon Web Services Quantum Computing Center and worked with the US Department of Homeland Security. Most recently, she was CEO of DCAI, an AI infrastructure company that recently partnered with Nvidia and is home to a supercomputer known as Gefion.

[00:06:01]Shares of Bird soared 39% on Wednesday.

[00:06:07]Oh, cuz of course they did. Of course it's 2026.

[00:06:12]Oh lordy. Allbirds surprised investors in April with plans to shift from making shoes to AI compute infrastructure and hardware. At the time, the company rebranded to a new Bird AI and its market cap surged sevenfold.

[00:06:27]A month [clears throat] earlier, the company sold its footwear assets to the brand management company American Exchange Group for $39 million. Allbirds also shuttered shuttered its US full-price stores in February. Allbirds is among the latest crop of companies pivoting to AI in a bid to capitalize on the burgeoning tech boom set off by ChatGPT's debut in late 2022. A day after Allbirds rebrand, social media platform MySeum shifted to AI, too.

[00:06:55]Yeah. Former professional soccer player Tim Brown and renewable resources expert Joey Zwillinger founded Allbirds in 2015 seeking to build sustainable shoes from natural materials. The company launched its debut shoe a year later and quickly transformed into a household name. In 2021, Allbirds went public on the Nasdaq surging 90% in its market debut. The company also rapidly expanded its brick-and-mortar footwear footprint.

[00:07:23]Over the years, its shares have slumped nearly 99% from a November 2021 high of $577 due to mounting competition and slowing trends.

[00:07:34]So, yeah, if you you can't make it in the footwear business, maybe [laughter] maybe you can make it in the AI infrastructure game. So, uh yeah, I don't I don't understand.

[00:07:52]>> [laughter] >> Dear YouTube viewers, like Eli the Computer Guy, he just doesn't understand.

[00:07:59]No, I don't I don't get it.

[00:08:02]>> [sighs and gasps] >> I can't fathom this.

[00:08:05]Like and to be clear, when I say I can't fathom this, there there are a lot of really interesting concepts out there I could understand. Like so right now there is a company out there that is basically trying to create mini data centers and suction cup them to people's houses. Uh so just like you have your little HVAC system, your little heat pump outside, the idea is you would have something about that size outside your house and it would be essentially a highly just a massively distributed uh AI data uh you know, infrastructure system. The The idea is you put thousands of these all around the country at residential houses, therefore you do not have to build big data centers. Maybe it's not the same drain on the electrical grid.

[00:08:52]There is an argument there. I don't think it's a particularly good argument, but look, there is an argument there.

[00:08:56]And so I think about this like with a company like Allbirds, right?

[00:08:59]If they [clears throat] had this retail footprint and let's say they had warehouses. So if you're thinking about things like Allbirds, you're thinking they're most likely going to be um in areas that are most likely uh popular for the techie set, right? The San Franciscos of the world, the Austins of the world, the the New Yorks of the world, whatever else, right? They they debuted in 2015. And so it's reasonable to think that they might have a good real estate play, right? Maybe they got leases or may maybe they purchased real estate in that particular time period, prices have gone through the roof, and so maybe there would be an idea of what what if they what if they position themselves in the middle between this insanely distributed AI system where things are suction cup to houses or you know data centers you know twice the size of Manhattan. What if basically you had like cat like you know the CDNs content delivery networks like whatever a content delivery network would look like in the artificial intelligence world. I don't know what that would look like. But what if you like what if with with the with the the rental the the real estate footprint they already had that it was geographically in areas so they could try to leverage that. Like you know it's that whole thing of you you what might be valuable for your company might not be necessarily the things you think are valuable for your company company. And so that's where I say like like there are there are some creative interesting ways maybe a play like this could make sense.

[00:10:45]But that doesn't seem to be what we're looking at here.

[00:10:49]You know they're [gasps] not they're not they're not re-utilizing the the retail footprint that they seem to have had for content delivery network AI micro data centers. They just seem to be pivoting into AI infrastructure.

[00:11:08]Why?

[00:11:10]Who knows?

[00:11:12]And this my friends this my friends is when you can really tell you're get you're getting to the top of the stupidity cycle. Right? You know they talk about that with back in oh back in 1929 or whatever there was the big there was the fancy rich person and he goes to get his shoe shined and the shoe shine boy starts giving him stock tips, and that's when he realizes to get out of the stock market. Well, I feel I feel like in the technology world, >> [laughter] >> right? When your mom starts talking about building data centers, that's when that's when you know you're getting to the peak of the stupidity cycle here. Like, think about this with uh I listen to the All-In podcast when I really want to get my blood pumping, and Chamath Chamath, the uh uh guy on there, he he was talking about how they're just they they just they just went they just went out and they just bought all this land, and they got all these permits for like a data center. They did They don't even know like what AI is going to go into the data center. He's just like, "Oh, yeah, we went out. We bought We bought a few thousand acres. We got all the permits for all this stuff for an AI data center. And now, you know, we're just We're just starting to figure out what kind of AI we're going to put What What are we talking about here?

[00:12:26]What are we talking like Oh, lord, this is real stuff. This is This is real tech. Not like Oh my god.

[00:12:35]>> [snorts] >> What is happening?

[00:12:39]So, anyways, anyways, you know, here's the here's the thing.

[00:12:43]Here Here Here is the reality reality.

[00:12:46]They're They're not going to tell you on the other commentary channels. You know, watching your empire fall apart actually is quite amusing.

[00:12:58]So, anyways, what do you think about this? What do you think about Allbirds, a tennis shoe company, pivoting into AI infrastructure? What do you think about this being the second video I've done about this? Again, did the first one a number of months ago. What do you think about this being real? Right? This This wasn't just like, you know, the the the the pivots a company does right before it actually fails. Like, no. No, they're They're going ahead with this.

[00:13:26]What do you think about the stock popping based off of this? What do you think about investors being excited about a tennis shoe company getting into AI as a drug share?

[00:13:37]When they first announced it, it went up by 7x. When they announced these new whatever the the CEO and the the brand change, it went up by another 39%.

[00:13:51]Oh lordy, I don't know. Put your thoughts down below. If you like you If you like these episodes, do remember they're on Spotify and on Apple Podcast.

[00:14:00]Link is down below. If you want to follow me on LinkedIn, there's a link down there, too. With that, see y'all later.