So here's a thing that's happening: Allbirds Inc (BIRD), the company that made comfortable wool sneakers for people who like to talk about comfortable wool sneakers, is getting out of the shoe business. And its stock is climbing because of it. Shares were up about 6.8% to $11.65 on Friday morning, capping off a week of wild swings.

The reason? The company isn't just closing up shop—it's doing a full corporate pirouette. Allbirds announced it's pivoting to artificial intelligence infrastructure. The new plan is to rebrand as NewBird AI and focus on providing GPU-as-a-Service and what it calls "AI-native cloud solutions." In simpler terms: instead of selling you shoes, it wants to sell computing power to companies building AI models.

To fund this rather abrupt career change, Allbirds has signed a definitive agreement for a $50 million convertible financing facility. This shift follows the sale of its footwear assets to another group. So the money from the old business is helping bankroll the new one.

Now, when a company announces it's leaving the industry it's known for to chase the hottest trend in tech, traders tend to notice. And some of them bet against it. Short interest in Allbirds recently increased from about 961,460 shares to 1.04 million shares. That means roughly 21.37% of the company's publicly available shares are being bet against. Based on average trading volume, it would take short sellers more than four days to buy back all those shares if they needed to exit their positions quickly—a setup that can sometimes lead to a short squeeze if the stock keeps rising.

There's more on the shareholder to-do list. The company has floated the idea of a potential special dividend tied to the asset sale, which would be for long-term holders. But first, investors need to approve the conversion of that $50 million financing facility. A special shareholder meeting is expected on May 18 to vote on just that.

Technically, the chart looks like someone drew a rocket ship. After rebounding sharply from a low in March, the stock is sitting well above the middle of its 52-week range. It's trading a staggering 188% above its 20-day simple moving average and 195% above its 100-day average. Over the past 12 months, the stock is up 119%. The 52-week high is $24.31; the low is $2.15.

The moving average picture has some mixed signals under the hood: the 20-day is above the 50-day (which is generally considered bullish), but a "death cross"—where the 50-day average falls below the 200-day—occurred back in October 2025. For traders watching levels, key resistance is seen at $12.50, with support around $10.

So, to sum up: A shoe company decides it's actually an AI infrastructure company, gets new financing, has a bunch of investors betting it will fail, and the stock goes up. It's one of those stories that makes the market interesting. Now we wait to see if shareholders approve the plan next month.