Wool and Light and Dead All Over


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The stock price of Allbirds, the driving shoe for people credulous enough to believe Teslas can self-drive, has crashed. On the day Allbirds went public, November 3, 2021,  2,100 days after debuting as a Kickstarter campaign, shares were scooped up like crazy. It hit $28.64. Shares now hover just above $1. For a normal sneaker, that might not affect sales, but Allbirds came up as the official sneaker of tech bros, and tech bros don’t want to be wearing the smoldering ruins of the SPAC boom when they’re buying Blank Street coffee. Allbirds are a paid-for blue check mark for the feet.

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They are a spillage. They are further proof that, on a long enough timeline, humanity inevitably beats commodities. Better put, Allbirds has gone the way of Soylent.

Back in 2013, American software engineer Rob Rinehart developed Soylent as an ingestible chemical slurry for people more interested in efficiency than in the niceties of lunch or dinner. Soylent’s range of drinks, powders, and bars, which could accurately be described as “mass market mucus,” looks like a symptom, but contains more lead and arsenic.

It has been influential, setting off a wave of venture capital investment in utilitarian solutions to problems that most people didn’t see as problems. Warby Parker solved glasses. Casper solved mattresses. Dollar Shave Club solved razors. All birds therefore solved shoes.

Or not. Like Allbirds, Warby Parker and Casper went slip sliding away on the NYSE. Dollar Shave Club got bought and then all but evaporated. The leaders of these companies have acted surprised, but that feels like pantomime. Allbirds has always led with tech. The company filed 14 patents prior to IPO and spent years waving them around like a burlesque dancer’s feather fan. Those patents supported a higher multiple, a less-than-comfortable valuation. But Allbirds was always going to end up being valued as a footwear company because even anti-footwear is footwear. And Allbirds is a crummy footwear company. The product isn’t great and the distribution channels are awful. (After Allbirds struck a deal to sell at Nordstrom’s last summer, Nordstrom’s announced they’re closing all their stores in San Francisco.)

Prior to going public, Allbirds was in the IPO business. Now, Allbirds is in the footwear business and it is an absolutely laughable company compared to actual sneaker makers investing enormous capital and care in order to create products that not only don’t dissolve in the rain or smash flat over time (Allbirds sells a loooot of replacement insoles), but exist in dialogue with mass culture.

People still wear the things. According to the magazines your mom reads in the supermarket checkout line, Leonardo DiCaprio remains a fan. According to SEC filings, he invested. He may not have gotten his feet out, but it’s likely they did pry loose his money.

The question becomes: If Allbirds was funded and built toward a liquidity moment that has come and gone, what’s the point now?

Allbirds persists as a footwear company that doesn’t want to be a footwear company. In the same way that Casper went from a mattress company to a “Sleep Company” (whatever that means), Allbirds will likely branch out. Expect new, arch language. “A Foot Company.” “A Comfort Company.” “A Sustainable Fashion Company.” “A Battery Company” (kidding, that’s Tesla).

But a half-life isn’t even half a life. When the Wall Street Journal reported last year that “the world’s most comfortable shoes” aren’t recommended “if you’re on your feet for long periods,” the trend was in black and white and dead all over. Appropriately, that report arrived just before Taylor Swift (yes, she’s somehow involved in DTC world too) set off a press cycle around a direct to consumer casket company.

The point of Allbirds is now to serve as a reminder of November 3, 2021, the high water mark for a flood of cynical DTC plays that punted on form, failed on function, and grew only because of capital injected. November 3, 2021 mattered because, for a moment, the market mistook a Kiwi former soccer player and a biohacker for the next Phil Knight. But the market squinted, put on its marked down Warby Parker glasses, and corrected. Allbirds isn’t Nike, it’s Soylent, and it’s an arb doing what arbs do: heading toward zero.

(Curiously, Zegna went public via SPAC a little over a month after the Allbirds IPO. The stock remains up. Zegna makes a great product. It’s a sound business.)

Whether Allbirds ever had a sound business depends on how one defines “sound,” but even the demi-gods of Silicon Valley’s demimonde have started to divest their closets. Jack Dorsey dumped Twitter but has remained faithful to his Rick Owens collection. The post-apocalyptic TURBRODRK Chuck 70s looks a bit goofy, but they also look like they were designed by a human person (though it’s unclear if Owens, a professional demon it would seem, would take that as a compliment).

For those who want a slimmed-down, streamlined sneaker that isn’t going to wilt like papier mache in the rain, there are tons of other trendy options out there. The Adidas Samba is back yet again this summer, making another trendy orbit around downtown cool kid hangouts. For those who like a low-ankle runner look, On Running’s Cloudflyer 4 still has a silhouette that’s tech bro–approved. For someone looking for just the basic white sneaker that stretches enough to pull on, go back to basics with a simple Vans pull-on shoe even. There’s so many options worth investing your money and feet in.

But don’t think for a moment that there won’t be another Allbirds. Hilma, a DTC brand making running shoes for women, is currently gaining traction on TikTok. The brand may not be made for “brogrammers,” but is made to neatly fit a narrative. And we know how that story ends.

adidas samba shoes against white background
adidas samba shoes against white background

adidas Samba OG Shoes

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On Running's Cloudflyer 4s against white background
On Running's Cloudflyer 4s against white background

On Running's Cloudflyer 4

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cream colored vans pull-on shoes
cream colored vans pull-on shoes

Vans Slip-On Shoes

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