Still looks a little bubbly to me.

In today's New Yorker newsletter (not particularly recommended), Kyle Chayka wrote:

A.I. has lately turned a corner; there are fewer concerns about an economic bubble. 

Not really sure where that's coming from. I suppose the A.I. bubble is looking less scary compared to the looming private credit crisis or the fallout from the Iran war, but it's still looking pretty frothy. 

Case in point. A few hours after the New Yorker email, I got the latest edition of Allison Morrow's (highly recommended) newsletter, which included this: 

The stock, which had been in the gutter since its November 2021, shot up more than 600% Wednesday. It closed at $14.50, up 582% from Tuesday’s close.

 

The catalyst came from Allbirds’ announcement that the company, once valued at $4 billion, would soon re-emerge as a new entity with a focus on “AI compute infrastructure.”

 

Translation: It’s going to essentially buy and rent out computing power to tech startups.

 

The shift comes just a few weeks after Allbirds sold its footwear assets and branding to American Exchange Group, which specializes in selling licensed fashion accessories with already-existing recognizable brand names, for just $39 million.

 

Allbirds, which will be rechristened “NewBird AI,” said it executed a $50 million deal with an unnamed institutional investor to acquire “high-performance GPU assets” to begin transitioning into a “fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service.”

...

Allbirds were more than sneakers; they were political statements, alerting wearers’ status to fellow members of the coastal Millennial techno-optimist tribe. Now, the go-to tech-worker accessory has become the tech itself. And the tech itself is just the abstract promise of “compute” to power AI products that aren’t exactly turning a profit yet.

 

That doesn’t mean the new brand, “Newbird AI,” is doomed. But it does illustrate Silicon Valley’s — and Wall Street’s — seeming willingness to reward any company that slaps the words “artificial intelligence” into its pitch decks.

 

Underscoring just how much has changed since Allbirds’ heyday, the new company also plans to abandon its foundational commitments to environmental conservation.

 

The company, which once touted “sustainability in every step,” was established as a certified B Corp, or a for-profit business with higher-than-usual standards for its social and environmental impact. But its new business is a notoriously energy intensive process, so the company plans to ask shareholders next month to approve a charter amendment to remove “references to the company being operated for the environmental conservation public benefit,” according to a regulatory filing.