It was only logical to see its market capitalization shed 99% of its value between November 2021 and April 2026, as Allbirds shuttered its North American stores and sold its brand for $39m - an amount equivalent to a mere quarter of its sales - in a final act of surrender.
That was until the phenomenal rebound the day before yesterday, when the share price suddenly septupled in a single session, bringing the market cap back toward the $150m-dollar mark. The catalyst: Allbirds is rebranding as "NewBird AI" and embarking on a fifty-million-dollar order of GPUs, entirely financed by a convertible bond issued by a mysterious benefactor who remains anonymous.
Notably, this pivot was announced via a press release on the Allbirds website but has yet to be the subject of a formal SEC filing. This is particularly intriguing given the nature of the development.
Like CoreWeave, discussed earlier this week in these columns, Allbirds - or rather NewBird AI - is reportedly pivoting from sneakers to "GPU-As-A-Service," or "GPUaaS." Once in direct competition with Nike or Hoka, the sparrow now finds itself facing off against apex predators like Dell, Amazon, and their ilk.
Does this pivot have any chance of succeeding? This is a question that will likely be ignored in the speculative fever that could turn NewBird into the "meme stock" of the moment, a trend that still largely characterizes anything remotely connected to artificial intelligence.
It goes without saying that the current era - recently described as the "golden age of fraud" by the renowned Jim Chanos - is hauntingly reminiscent of the dotcom bubble at the end of the last century, when moribund listed companies simply added ".com" to their names and saw their valuations explode instantly.
Following in the footsteps of cryptocurrencies, the computing power infrastructure sector seems to be attracting unscrupulous players whose blatant tactics remain mysteriously ignored by a regulator that appears to be asleep at the wheel. As is often the case, the authorities will wake up too late, amidst general consternation.
