{"id":257523,"date":"2026-04-08T12:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T12:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/257523\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T12:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T12:12:09","slug":"the-san-francisco-tech-worlds-most-boring-shoe-is-finally-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/257523\/","title":{"rendered":"The San Francisco tech world’s most boring shoe is finally dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you walk up\u00a0Hayes Street<\/a> toward the absinthe bars and modern boutiques, past the designer dogs and techies on conference calls, you\u2019ll see them: a mysterious pair of cork door handles in the shape of two obscenely large, bare feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Though they\u2019re attached to a vacant storefront and surrounded by a gated metal prison, they once guarded the entrance to Allbirds, a San Francisco shoe empire that almost exclusively catered to tech workers. But 10 years after its peak\u00a0\u2014 and its multibillion-dollar valuation\u00a0\u2014 the monochromatic sneaker company sold for a mere $39 million<\/a>\u00a0this year, signaling the end of an era for a shoe that once embodied the white-collar world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Founded in 2015 by Bay Area entrepreneur Joseph Zwillinger, Allbirds shoes were touted as quality, dependable footwear for everyday life in San Francisco. \u201cWe don\u2019t think of ourselves as a fashion brand,\u201d co-founder and co-CEO Tim Brown previously told\u00a0TechCrunch<\/a>, explaining that the company\u2019s shoes are meant to be \u201ccomfortable, functional\u201d and \u201csimple.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Though they lacked the rigor of high-performance running shoes like the Nike Alphafly 3, they were ideal for 2010s Bay Area culture. After all, Allbirds customers weren\u2019t die-hard athletes racing in marathons; they were optimistic startup employees gleefully lining up for brunch in the Mission and $13 truffle<\/a> fries at industrial burger restaurants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Tim<\/p>\n

Tim Brown, the co-founder of shoe company Allbirds, speaks onstage at the OMR Festival in Hamburg, Germany.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marcus Brandt\/picture alliance via Getty Images<\/p>\n

By 2016, when the term \u201cgirl-boss\u201d wasn\u2019t pejorative and butter-infused coffee<\/a> was a staple of every young professional\u2019s ketogenic diet, Allbirds was at its apex. Its $95 merino Wool Runners were a unifying symbol among tech workers in San Francisco, becoming a regular sight on private charter buses and Dreamforce events.<\/p>\n

When it raised $7.25 million<\/a> that same year, tech reporters who gushed about the shoe\u2019s impressive quality broke even bigger news \u2014 soon, there would be an exciting array of new colors: light red and dark blue for women, light green for men, and black. In 2021<\/a>, Allbirds went public at $15 per share, reportedly valuing the fledgling startup at $2.15 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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In an optimistic earnings call for Q4 of that year<\/a>, Zwillinger said that the lifestyle brand had made record-breaking sales and had acquired over 1 million new customers, positioning it for monumental success. \u201cAs we enter 2022, we believe we are on a trajectory for the most compelling product road map in the history of the company,\u201d Brown also said in the call, \u201cand we look forward to revealing more of that story as the year unfolds.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But somewhere along the way\u00a0\u2014 and for reasons that still haven\u2019t been fully explained\u00a0\u2014 Allbirds\u2019 story took a turn.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A general view of the atmosphere during the Whitney Port Hikes with Allbirds and Friends in Los Angeles on Dec. 3, 2016.<\/p>\n

Tommaso Boddi\/Getty Images for Allbirds<\/p>\n

In a subsequent earnings call<\/a>, Zwillinger said that the company\u2019s performance in 2022 wasn\u2019t nearly as successful as they had hoped it would be, explaining that weak consumer demand, as well as \u201cstrategic and executional missteps,\u201d cudgeled the San Francisco shoe company. According to the former CEO, the brand went beyond its core consumers and chased after wider audiences by developing new colors, silhouettes and materials like SwiftFoam and plant leather. But these changes weren\u2019t commercially successful, executives said, and they needed to return to their core demographic: affluent people in their 30s who lead an active lifestyle and travel the world.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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According to a company news release<\/a>, for the third quarter of 2025, net revenue decreased to $33 million compared with $43 million<\/a> the year prior due to store closures and structural changes. By contrast, during that same period in 2021<\/a>, the company made about $63 million. Not very reassuringly, executives said in financial documents that\u00a0Allbirds has netted \u201csignificant<\/a>\u201d losses since its inception and will likely continue to bleed out for the foreseeable future.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the last several years on Reddit, a slew of customers<\/a> have<\/a> lamented that newer versions of Allbirds have fallen apart after just a few months, while some said that they feel noticeably\u00a0cheaper, stiffer and heavier.<\/a> \u201cI can\u2019t even wear the new ones,\u201d one person wrote under a November 2024 post<\/a>. \u201cThey hurt my feet.\u201d Though this same customer happily bought pairs in 2020 and 2022, they said the quality was noticeably worse when they recently purchased them again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never had a pair of shoes do that, ever,\u201d one person chimed in<\/a> under a 2025 post. \u201cNot even $20 Walmart shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Paper<\/p>\n

Paper covers the windows of a shuttered Allbirds store in Chicago on April 2, 2026.<\/p>\n

Scott Olson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cLike most of you here, I was once very loyal to Allbirds,\u201d one customer wrote<\/a>. \u201cHow did we go from the world\u2019s most comfortable shoe to shoes that will outright cause you pain?\u201d<\/p>\n

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For years, Allbirds were manufactured in South Korea<\/a>, but in 2023<\/a>, the company switched all of its new footwear to one manufacturer in Vietnam, financial documents show. However, the company stated<\/a> that it \u201cmay be required to shift production capacity back to China (or other countries for which the U.S. government has imposed higher tariffs) due to lack of manufacturing expertise or capacity in relatively lower-tariff countries.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDesigning and creating products using innovative, sustainable materials is a challenging process for both us as well as our supply chain partners,\u201d another filing from\u00a02023 said<\/a>, adding that these unique natural materials make it difficult for competitors to replicate on a mass scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SFGATE reached out to Allbirds press representatives several times for comment but did not hear back before the time of publication.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The exterior of the Allbirds store in San Francisco\u2019s Hayes Valley.<\/p>\n

Ariana Bindman\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

In January 2026, Allbirds announced that it would shut down its last remaining full-price stores in the U.S., including its location in Hayes Valley, and switch to an e-commerce and international model instead.<\/a>\u00a0Just two outlets will remain<\/a> in the U.S., the company said. Meanwhile, on social media<\/a>, retail associates said that they were given just three hours notice ahead of these closures and fired via email and Google Meet. Despite Allbirds\u2019 mission-based messaging, it all feels eerily similar to the waves of mass layoffs at other Bay Area tech companies, where CEOs terminated employees<\/a> by silently deactivating their key cards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Today, Allbirds shares are worth about $2.59, around a fifth of what they once were. On March 30<\/a>, Allbirds announced that it would sell to the American Exchange Group\u00a0\u00a0\u2014 the company that owns other fading brands like Mudd, Aerosoles and Ed Hardy \u2014\u00a0for about $39 million. Zwillinger, who stepped down as CEO in 2024, now runs a hormonal <\/a>supplement company<\/a>\u00a0with his wife.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Much like Soylent, Allbirds perfectly encapsulates the philosophy of the Bay Area tech world, which often aims to optimize and flatten the human experience as much as possible. In this gray and beige universe, joy and beauty are sacrificed in favor of efficiency and productivity \u2014 but it\u2019s possible that Gen Zers and millennials are finally killing the clean millennial aesthetic<\/a> of the 2010s, paving the way for rococo maximalism instead.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to a 2026 trend prediction report<\/a> from the San Francisco-based mood board company Pinterest, lavish, avant-garde aesthetics like \u201cGlamoratti,\u201d \u201cNeo Deco\u201d and \u201cGlitchy Glam\u201d are taking over the website\u2019s search engine. It seems that the young people chasing after these wild aesthetics are ditching utilitarianism and are literally searching for more. They want to look like vampires and revel in \u201980s<\/a> decadence while wearing brooches and messy lace. They want circus-themed bedrooms, clashing colors and baroque accessories. In the age of artificial intelligence, where everything is becoming startlingly smooth and strangely perfect, such messiness is welcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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In a time when capitalism was considered cool and aspirational, Allbirds made perfect sense. But maybe it\u2019s finally time for the flock to abandon its nest and take flight.\u00a0<\/p>\n