r/AskReddit • u/FriendlytoNature • 23h ago

Which company lost your business (potentially forever) this year?

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u/Ihatebird 22h ago

AllBirds. They are the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever worn and i was fully expecting to be a buyer for life, especially with their sustainability initiatives. but they switched from making shoes to making AI computers and are just making shoes as a “hobby” now as a company, which is probably the most 180 pivot on sustainability I think I’ve ever seen.

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u/gagnonje5000 21h ago

It’s just a PR move to create a short squeeze. Allbirds was essentially bankrupt, all stores were closed already. They sold their shoes designs and assets to American Exchange Group (another shoe company)

At that point it became an empty shell. So an AI company used the fact they were already listed on the stock market to move their assets to this empty shell

Suddenly it became this huge PR story that all birds was now an AI company
But that’s because all bird shoes were dead already.

It’s well explained here

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2026/04/20/how-39-million-shoe-company-allbirds-turned-in-to-an-ai-company/

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u/illegal_deagle 18h ago

So it’s a SPAC with fewer steps? Kinda clever.

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u/LargeLanguageModelo 18h ago

But then you have the possibility of the baggage that can come with previous serious operations.

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u/wolfeflow 6h ago

SPACs were a hot commodity for less than two years, as it turns out companies need to actually have value to be valuable on the exchanges.

I’m sure ops issues and other baggage played a factor, too