Good Riddance

Bird, the dockless electric scooter company that has been blocking sidewalks, and preventing people in wheelchairs from getting around, has filed for bankruptcy.

Good. They were a bunch of parasites whose whole business model was predicated on monetizing the public commons for their own personal profit:

Bird has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, capping off a turbulent year for the electric scooter company.

In a press release today, Bird confirmed that it had entered into a “financial restructuring process aimed at strengthening its balance sheet,” with the company continuing to operate as normal in pursuit of “long-term, sustainable growth.”

Founded in 2017 by former Lyft and Uber executive Travis VanderZanden, Bird is one of numerous startups to introduce dockless micromobility platforms around the world, allowing city-dwellers to pay for short-term access to electric scooters or bikes. The company went public in late 2021 via a SPAC merger, but in a crowded market built on questionable economics, its stock went into a perennial nosedive, with its market cap dropping from more than $2 billion at its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) debut to just $70 million 12 months later. This decline led the NYSE to issue a warning that Bird’s share price was too low.

Things didn’t improve, and with its share price continuing to plummet, CEO VanderZanden departed in June with the company eventually delisted from the NYSE in September.

Let’s see, you had a business model where the basic product had safety issues (ever been nearly run down on a side walk?), few barriers to competitor entry, large ongoing maintenance costs, and they are having problems?

Hoocoodanode? Certainly not the plethora of venture capital firms that dropped about a billion before it went public, and then probably cashed in before the roof fell in.

I am sick and tired of the pump and dump VC Ponzi bullsh%$.