Allbirds, Inc. Announces Expansion into AI Compute Infrastructure
- On top of this whole thing just being ridiculous, $50mm is also just not a very impressive amount of money to build out an AI data center.
- me: i would like to buy some sneakers
allbirds: ok
me: i'd also like to buy compute capacity to run AI inference on the cheap lol do u know where i can find a good one
allbirds: ur not gonna believe this
- Long Island Iced Tea Corp did this back in 2017 when they rebranded to "Long Blockchain Corp".
Allbirds should've rebranded itself as AIbirds.
- This is absolutely doomed but how funny would it be if 50 years from now people share trivia like "Hey did you know that Allbirds started as a shoe company?" the way people talk about Nintendo starting as a playing card company
- I personally welcome the new GPUs that smell like wet dog and look like a old subway sandwiched left in the rain.
by threecheese
1 subcomments
- Are we in a bubble yet? The sneakers are doing AI now.
by trashcan2137
0 subcomment
- Wait, weren't they making sneakers? I'm pretty much sure I have a pair
- It's not an expansion. The first line says they sold the shoe business which will continue under someone else. The company is changing names and its line of business.
- This reminds me of when a coworker left to go help develop Technicolor's (yes, that Technicolor) new social media platform.
by speakingmoistly
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- I hope their foray into compute works out better than their shoemaking. Bought a pair, didn't even last a season before starting to fall apart (which would still be very on brand for the general AI sector).
by DeepYogurt
1 subcomments
- The shoe company? Edit: The shoe company.
- It’s not an expansion, they are selling the shoe assets. It’s basically just starting a new business and redeploying capital (if there is any). It’s just a really odd way to announce and undertake it.
by agrippanux
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- If my math is right they can acquire about 1800 (lowish end) enterprise AI-capable GPUs for $50M so exactly what are they going to do with that? Seems pretty small.
- Seems weird the new name is singular ("Newbird AI") when the old name is plural. Wonder how they chose that. I can't imagine "Newbirds AI" was taken!
- shoe shine boy is trying to sell me compute
by theappsecguy
0 subcomment
- Are we in a bubble yet? Still no? Ok...
- LOL.
This reminds me of when the Long Island Iced Tea company renamed themselves to the Long Blockchain Corp in 2017 when crypto was soaring and their stock immediately took off.
Four years later the SEC charged three people (including the company's majority shareholder) with insider trading.
- It might be time for Long Island Ice Tea Corp. to transition from blockchain to AI.
- I knew something was up when every morning I'd find my Allbirds mysteriously on top of my keyboard. And coincidentally, someone has been using all of my Claude tokens every night...
But my jogging has been great recently! I've been posting PBs on Strava, though I don't remember creating a Strava account any time... hmmm...
by austinbaggio
1 subcomments
- This makes my start-up's pivots look a lot smaller
- Each step powers one Claude conversation
by aaronbrethorst
1 subcomments
- Stock’s up 600% on the ‘news’
by ivraatiems
0 subcomment
- I have a pair of Allbirds, they're pretty comfy. I like them.
What, ah, do they have to do with AI?
- This a last ditch effort to pop the stock a little so investors can get out?
- What a time to be alive.
- i do not know why this is surprising to literally anyone. did we think the D2C shoes made of felt were still a smashing business success/going concern? or have we not fully memorized the narratives that procure funding for struggling companies in this climate?
by adrianmonk
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- If their slogan isn't "The Sole of a New Machine", I'll be disappointed.
by JohnTHaller
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- Most folks on the NotTheOnion subreddit (where you post actual news headlines that you'd assume would be from The Onion) say this is their recent favorite
- The tech bro shoe really living up to it's name
by fred_is_fred
0 subcomment
- They were basically bankrupt 2 weeks ago and sold for $39M. The stock pop shows me that we're in a bubble of irrational exuberance. And what are they going to to with 50M? Buy a few racks of servers?
- Didnt they learn their lessons from oracle?
by nathan_compton
1 subcomments
- I hope this doesn't mess up their shoes. I am allergic to the plastic/leather in most shoes and allbirds is one of the few brands that typically is ok.
- Literally had to check the date with this one.
What?!
- SMH
This is the height of ridiculousness.
I guess if there are "second chances" in American capitalism (and 3rd, 4th, 5th,...) then literally any pivot makes sense ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I guess then nobody should complain that everybody and their grandmas pivot to doing vibe coding, either. And if they produce AI slop, so be it...
As others have noted, this is like the crypto pivot that many companies did a few years ago
- ”AI” is the new “.com”
by ChrisArchitect
0 subcomment
- Related:
Allbirds announces pivot from shoes to AI, stock explodes 175%
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/allbirds-bird-stock-shoes-ai...
- This is good news for AI. These kind of pivots just show what a revolutionary and world-changing technology this is.
Invest now! This is the lowest AI stocks will ever be.
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