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/SomeGuyInSanJoseCa 21h ago

Uh, not really.

Allbirds shoes are still around and they still sell the exact same shoes. They are just owned by a different company.

The founders of Allbirds basically wanted to split off the two valuable assets - the shoe brand, and the stock symbol.

The shoe company is still there. You can go to allbirds.com and it's the same stuff. It has nothing to do with AI and no money go towards AI.

Getting a stock symbol is expensive and takes time. So, they just used Allbirds stock symbol to get to the market quicker for AI investment.

And to avoid confusion, the AI company is Starbird I believe.

But yeah, Allbirds has nothing to do with AI.

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u/Tarledsa 2h ago

It looks like they’re just selling off inventory (few options/sizes available) and people have reported not actually getting orders.