The company has ditched its iconic Allbirds name in favor of Smartbird, which… sure? Simple enough, sounds like a startup name for the Internet of Things era, especially since AIbirds was perfect for them. According to CNBC, Smartbird will be led by Nadia Carlstein, the previous head of Amazon Web Services’ quantum computing efforts. He most recently served as CEO of DCAI, an AI infrastructure company in Denmark.
According to Bloomberg, the company formerly known as Allbirds, which made woolen sneakers, will now be in the business of AI infrastructure as a service. how exactly? According to a press release issued by the company when it initially announced this pivot, it claimed that it would seek to “acquire high-performance, low-latency AI compute hardware and provide access under long-term lease arrangements, meeting customer demand that the spot market and hyperscalers are unable to reliably serve.” Why is one shoe manufacturer more able to do this than another? This is unclear.
What is clear is that whatever was in the Allbirds’ past will not be a part of its future. In an interview with Business Insider, new CEO Carlston said she was “unaware of all things Allbirds,” and asserted, “In a few months, people won’t even remember the shoes.”
According to her, she’s basically starting from scratch. All manufacturing equipment and anything related to the shoe-making business has reportedly been sold, and Carlston said that “anyone dedicated to the retail business is no longer part of the company,” so she is hiring a whole new team from scratch. Well, not exactly zero – according to Bloomberg, it has about $100 million in its coffers. But like, why not just start a startup and raise money? One that is not a public company from day one and is subject to shareholder scrutiny for making profits?
The answer to that question may actually lie in the stock price. When Allbirds first announced it was going to move into AI infrastructure, its share price soared 600%. This announcement of the name change and new CEO resulted in a 50% surge at the time of publication. It seems the market is very stupid. Can also capitalize. Congratulations to all those who come out while others rush to hold the bags for them.
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