We're in the AI bubble now
In a Nutshell
Allbirds' pivot to AI—hedging with "seek to acquire" $50M in compute hardware—is a scam tell signaling the AI bubble, mirroring Eric Watson's 2017 iced tea rebrand to Long Blockchain Corp., which pumped stock 400% via hype without substance. Bubbles evolve toward "pure photon scams" of pure intent: dot-com needed websites, crypto just whitepapers, AI merely a verb, enabling lazy pivots that bag retail investors while regulators ignore them. Real pivots like Nintendo's require substance; Allbirds' GPU shopping cart ploy preys on hype, with Russell Crowe as the video's symbolic scam-fighter.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Russell Crowe walks into the men's bathroom of a five-star hotel in London in 2002 and encounters New Zealander Eric Watson washing his hands at the sink. They beat the absolute shit out of each other for unexplained reasons. Russell Crowe returns to being an Oscar winner and movie star. Eric Watson returns to his day job selling women's underwear through his company Ellie McFersonson Intimates.
Eric Watson will change American finance forever 15 years later.
Every scam has a tell in the language, always that one word or little verb representing the whole scam in miniature. Once you learn to listen for it, you will never go broke again. It's like knowing 'we should hang out sometime' means you will never see the person again.
This week's word is seek. Shoe company Allbirds pivoted to AI on Wednesday. Their press release said they will initially seek to acquire high-performance AI compute hardware. They didn't say 'initially acquire AI hardware,' which would be reasonable. Seek to acquire is the metaphysical precedent of acquiring. They're not an AI company; they're AI curious, not natural, just wanting to know what it feels like.
The press release hedges because $50 million in AI compute in 2026 is a total joke—enough for 10 video cards, not even servicing Gary Tan's daily quota. Nvidia is sold out until 2028. The $50 million is the absolute minimum to survive public scrutiny from an undisclosed investor, which public companies are legally allowed.
Fresh off the fight with Russell Crowe, Eric Watson buys a controlling stake in an iced tea company in Farmingdale, Long Island in 2015. Two years later, Bitcoin pops off. Eric notices iced tea and Bitcoin both make people nauseous.
In December 2017, the company renames itself Long Blockchain Corp. They wrote no code, hired no engineers. The factory still had iced tea. Gary in the loading dock packed diet mango tea on Monday; by Tuesday, he was legally a blockchain engineer—found out from his wife asking why LinkedIn says he works at a crypto firm. The guy next to him, also Gary (14 Garys at the factory), asks what blockchain is.
Stock shot up 400% that day. Eric called broker Oliver Barrett Lindsay the night before, who called Ganon Gigair. Ganon bought 35,000 shares the night before and sold the whole bag within 2 hours after the press release. SEC caught them, but nothing came of it.
Allbirds is the iced tea blockchain thing again. Every bubble has its scam:
- Dot-com: Had to build a website, hire web designer/developer, buy domain.
- Crypto: Just write a white paper PDF.
- AI: Not even a PDF, just a damn verb.
Scams get lighter each generation—like Moore's law for scams—approaching a pure photon scam of pure intent, no mass or substance, just wavelength. Allbirds is close; one more pivot hits scam singularity.
Not all fun and games—the scam works because someone eats the shit. Poor hardworking plumber in Ohio sees Allbirds stock pop 600%, apes in at $17 on Wednesday, down a third by Thursday, loses everything by next month.
Takes on X claim pivots are important; great companies started as something else, e.g., Nintendo from playing cards to board games to toys to video games—100 years of entertainment products.
Allbirds has 10 years of consumer supply chain experience (warehouses, inventory, delivery). Honest pivot: AI logistics spin-off worth 10,000x the stock. But building software is hard; buying GPUs is laziest way to say you did AI—walk into Micro Center with credit card, technically satisfy press release.
Nobody stops them: not SEC, not Congress, not Bloomberg.
Only one man with proven track record: Russell Crowe.
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