People shop at an Allbirds store, a maker of sustainable shoes, in lower Manhattan on Aug. 31, 2021, in New York.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Allbirds, the San Francisco-based sneaker brand of choice for a large swath of Bay Area techies, announced layoffs last week.
Twenty-three employees, or “Flock” members, were laid off, an Allbirds spokesperson confirmed to SFGATE on Tuesday. The staff cut was first posted on Layoffs.fyi, a layoff tracker for startups.
“We have thoughtfully evaluated roles and processes in each department, and in each market, to ensure our operating structure is set-up for the next phase of growth,” the spokesperson said in a statement to SFGATE. “In this process, we looked for ways to streamline workflows, reduce duplicative efforts, and put past learnings and operational insights into practice.”
Allbirds shoes are plain (or minimalist, depending on your vantage point), washable and made with wool and recycled materials. They’ve grown a celebrity following, receiving financial backing from Leonardo DiCaprio and worn out and about by everyone from New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to Ben Affleck. But they’re perhaps most known as the sneaker of choice among the tech class in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley — and are so ubiquitous they may as well join the Patagonia vest as part of the quintessential tech bro uniform.
Direct-to-consumer brands — those millennial-core companies that purport to revolutionize an old-fashioned industry and cut out the middleman, like Away for suitcases and Casper for mattresses — have had a particularly tough go in 2022. These brands have been afflicted by the economic headwinds impacting companies at large, and are also directly impacted by supply chain woes, shipping delays and Facebook losing its advertising edge. Already, brands in the space are starting to partner with the middlemen they wanted to eliminate. Glossier, just last week, announced plans to sell products in Sephora retail locations.
Allbirds’ stock has declined by about 70% year-to-date as of Tuesday afternoon. The company went public in 2021.
“The decision to say goodbye to members of our Flock is not one we made lightly, and we are supporting impacted team members to give them a soft landing,” the spokesperson added. (The spokesperson declined to comment when asked what specific severance benefits laid-off workers will receive.)
Allbirds employed 710 people as of December 2021.
Hear of anything going on at a Bay Area tech company? Contact Joshua Bote securely at [email protected] or on Signal at (707) 742-3756.
