There was a December story I never got to cover properly, and that was my delight over Bird Scooter’s bankruptcy.
Electric scooter company Bird Global announced Wednesday that it has filed for bankruptcy protection in an attempt to stabilize its wobbly finances.
The move marks a sobering comedown for a formerly high-flying startup that was trying to make it easier to get around big cities in an environmentally friendly way with its fleet of electric scooters. The concept attracted about $500 million in investments from prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms such as Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners before becoming a publicly traded company in 2021.
The things have been annoying ubiquitous in downtown Austin, from Bird and other firms like Lime.
Now, the Miami-based company finds itself struggling to survive after losing more than $430 million since the end of 2021.
Bird has lined up $25 million in financing from MidCap Financial, a division of Apollo Global Management, as it tries to reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Florida.
Michael Washinushi, Bird’s interim CEO, predicted the company will be able to bounce back and continue its “mission to make cities more livable” by providing vehicles that don’t clog the roads nor burn fuel. But investors seemed doubtful as Bird’s stock lost nearly 80% of its remaining value Wednesday to close at 8 cents per share, a far cry from its price of about $154 at the end of 2021.
I have no objections to electric scooters themselves, or even renting electric scooters. What I object most strenuously to is the business model Bird and their ilk have pursued, which is: Just leave your scooters any damn place and we’ll pick them up later.
This is an abuse of both the commons and any patches of private property these scooter-renting Eloi happen to leave their discarded vehicles scattered onto. We have laws against littering, and they should apply equally to people who dump these things on lawns and sidewalks.
Bird and their ilk seem both a sneaky assault on private property, and an ill-considered investment scheme of companies trying to gin up a new market far in advance of real demand, much like WeWork. And this “ride sharing” idea already failed miserably in China with multiple non-electric bike startups going bust and leaving behind mountains of unused bikes.
Thanks to their abuse of the commons, Bird deserves to go bust.
And now a bonus Family Guy clip:
(Note: BlueHost is still going dog slow. I’ll try to chat with someone there tomorrow.)
Tags: Austin, bankruptcy, Bird (scooter company), Tragedy of the Commons, video
Anyone with half a brain would be looking at all these things that these new-age geniuses have come up with and saying “Oh, yeah… That whole WEF deal where they say that the masses will own nothing and be happy… That won’t be happening…”
Like it or not, humans are not sufficiently altruistic enough in sufficient numbers to be able to make something like this work. If you had a population of responsible adults that cared about the stuff in the “commons”? You might be able to get something like these ride- and vehicle-sharing systems to work. Because of the ever-present “free-rider” problem, that ain’t happening anywhere but in really isolated and carefully curated communities like maybe the bases in Antarctica.
Imagine how all these ride-sharing deals are going to work out, with all the recent “migrants” flooding the cities… Suuuuure… It’ll all be fine, and the moon is made of green cheese.
I will not say that all people are assholes. There are good ones out there, but I will say that anything you come up with that is predicated upon the insane proposition that all humans are always altruistic and good is a fundamentally delusional idea, and one which will result in failure and disappointment, every single time. You’re way better off planning on “All asshole, all the time”, and then being mildly and pleasantly surprised when some few of us fail to live down to that rule.
You should have serious objections to electric scooters themselves. And eBikes as well. Their lithium ion batteries are a proven, deadly fire hazard.
CPSC is slow rolling recalls of eBikes and eScooters due to the environmental wacko policies of the Zhou Bai Den regime. In the meantime, people are being burned alive when these Chinese wonders self ignite in the stairwells of apartment buildings, or in attached garages.
Great for being tripped. I was surprised no blind people didn’t have a class action lawsuit filed with these blocking their way.
God bless the free market.
[…] of the startup failures Boyle namechecks (Hyperloop, Bird) seemed like stupid ideas from the git-go. “Bird the electric scooter rental company—which […]