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Non-Tech CEOs’ Pivots to A.I. Follow a Familiar Wall Street Script

Allbirds CEO Joe Vernachio’s turnaround effort has turned into a high-risk bet on A.I. “The bet is, ‘we can use the current market appetite for anything A.I.-related to raise capital and acquire our way into relevance,’” said a Wharton professor.

Joe Vernachio, Allbirds’ former COO, was appointed CEO in March 2024, replacing co-founder Joey Zwillinger, to turn around the company after years of declining sales and store closures. Less than five years after the sneaker maker‘s $3 billion IPO, Vernachio is now asking shareholders to approve a deal, announced April 15, to sell the company’s assets to American Exchange Group for just $39 million. What remains would be a Nasdaq-listed shell renamed NewBird AI. The new plan is to build a business renting access to GPUs, the chips used to train and run A.I. systems, backed by up to $50 million in debt from an unnamed institutional investor. Allbirds shares surged as much as 435 percent after the announcement.

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