The Wild, Broken Ride of Bird and Its Scooter Empire with Joe Fenti and Maddy Smith | 100

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Grab an e-scooter, Bestie, and crank that thing right up to 15 miles per hour because Bird Scooters is about to take you for a ride.

It's been called the Uber of Electric Scooters.

California-based startup Bird has grown from a $300 million valuation to being worth over $2 billion in less than six months.

Who Who's in charge of fixing your bikes and maintaining them?

We call them the fleet managers.

They were taking these scooters, these ones right here, all the way to the airport.

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I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media's superstar and the first person to ever successfully land a 720 bar spin tail whip.

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And y'all, I'm very, very excited because on our show today, we have a couple of very funny stand-up comedians.

Please go and check their socials for show dates coming up very, very soon.

It's Joe Fenty and Maddie Smith.

Welcome to the show.

Hello, hello.

Thank you for having us.

Thanks for having us.

Ah, the crowds are going wild.

I can hear them through the interwebs.

So, okay, before we jump into bird scooters, in 30 seconds or less, please solve the public transportation crisis.

More.

That's it.

Perfect.

More.

Yeah.

Yeah, more is good.

Freaking

trains.

More trains.

Many of these are so sick.

So, all right, we've ridden trains, but have you ever been on one of the electric scooters?

I've been on those lime scooters.

Yeah, the first time I ever did it, I was on a trip to Denver and picked one up.

And then I immediately saw some middle-aged man eat face.

Hilarious.

Great.

I was like, oh, okay, I'm going to be, I guess I'll be careful today.

Yeah, that's foreshadowing, for sure.

For sure.

So, yeah, today we explained how one company, Bird, littered city streets with piles of environmentally friendly e-scooters.

The person behind this obviously great idea is a man named Travis Van der Zanden.

No, his name is not a chat GPT hallucination.

Let's go back to the 80s, when Van der Zanden is a regular kid growing up in a small town in Wisconsin.

His mom and sister are both bus drivers, and his father leaves the family when Van der Zanden is still pretty young.

But he's got big dreams to make a name for himself.

So he gets a degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin and then packs up and drives himself cross-country to sunny San Diego.

But once he arrives in California, he realizes he's got a long way to go.

He has to sleep in his car with just his dreams and a notebook full of ambitious ideas to keep him warm.

But look, it's 2002, and any nerd with a computer science degree won't stay unemployed for too long, lucky for him.

So not only does Vander Zanden find a job, he finds one that pays him to go and get his master's in business.

Nice.

That's pretty cool.

I know.

That's a good setup.

What's the biggest benefit you've ever received from a job?

Maybe a little bit off of a gym membership.

Yeah, a nap pod in the office nobody uses.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, Van der Zanden, he spends five years working for a prominent software company called Qualcomm while simultaneously attending USC, commuting eight hours twice a week to Los Angeles for night classes.

And in 2007, after he does graduate, it's time for Van Der Zanden to consummate his marriage to tech and launch a startup.

As we do.

As we do.

Especially 2007.

Hello.

Facebook is kicking off.

Here we go.

Got to get that tech.

So a certified trendsetter, he moves to my city, Austin, Texas, and gets to work.

It is Tech Bro hub here these days.

Yeah, you guys are like a walking Patagonia vest.

Literally.

Absolutely.

Austin is the first place that I ever did a lime scooter.

Okay, that makes sense.

Not to name drop other scooters on here, but it's all one in the same.

Yeah, it's all the same.

His company is QuickCom, a chat app for businesses.

And when the head of a similar startup called Yammer finds out his competition is just one guy, he's so impressed with Van der Zanden that he offers him a job.

And Van der Zanden instantly levels up, becoming Yammer's chief revenue officer.

Nice.

Yeah, that's a sick low-up, dude.

I know, right?

It sounds sounds like Vander Salmon or whatever is good at, you know, talking his way up, right?

He's like the scooter Zuckerberg.

So after a few years of job security, Vander Zanden is ready for his first serious venture.

So he opens up his little notebook and he picks out an idea.

Quote, everybody needs to get their car washed, so why not do it on demand?

He calls his innovation cherry.

I'm not going to guess why.

That's like chariot.

Was he going for that?

I don't know.

Because, like, that's kind of cool, but if it's just like the fruit, that doesn't mean anything.

I know.

This is a car washing business.

It's an app where you can hire a rando to come wash your car instead of driving one city block to find a place.

Or if you live in a suburb, hiring that teen who's saving up for a dirt bike.

In every scenario, you're out $5.

Yeah, whatever floats your boat, Vander Dandruff, whatever works.

I'm in.

Yeah.

What's your take?

Is this a good idea, a good business?

I guess in the context of 2007 to 2009, it's pretty good.

If you said it out loud right now, then we would all laugh at you.

But back then, right, we didn't really realize that you could do like things like TaskRabbit.

So I would say back then, I would be like, oh, this guy's cool.

I think like hearing it now, I'm like, oh, I could see how that exists.

But yeah, if I heard it 15 years ago, I don't think I, I don't think I would have believed in it.

Like, Like, what do you mean?

Just go to the car wash.

But now everyone wants everything delivered.

I think that if it has failed, they should bring it back.

Okay.

I totally agree.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I do think convenience these days outweighs some of the logistical problems that we'll talk about.

You'd have to find a ton of washers who are both competent and willing to be paid less than a child, but who cares, right?

Right.

A big transportation tech company does acquire this logistical nightmare anyway.

And in 2013, Van Der Zanden moves up one full rung on the Tech Bro ladder and he becomes the chief operating officer for Lyft.

What?

All right.

Yeah.

He's good.

I know.

He's good.

He makes moves.

Yeah.

He's like, I've had two jobs and here I am.

Here I am.

COO.

I almost don't want to learn more about the story.

I just kind of want to have this hero in my mind.

He's doing great.

Just stop it.

I know.

It's like watching the first half of Titanic.

You're like, great.

This is like a good boat.

This should be called Party Boat.

This is dope.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, now at Lyft, Van Der Zanden can start rubbing bigger elbows to make some actual sparks.

After only one year at Lyft, Van der Zanden demands to be made CEO or he'll quit.

Oh, wow.

So he had to have quit.

Right.

Yeah.

It's an amazing ultimatum.

Yeah.

They're like, yeah, we can replace you, dude.

Yeah.

We'll go to Silicon Valley.

We're good.

We'll create AI of you.

It's all good.

And how old is he by now?

Like, 30s?

Is he in his 30s by now?

Yeah.

I mean, like, he graduated and then he said they worked somewhere for a few years.

So he's pushing 30 at least.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, yeah, he heads over to another promising little company called Uber.

Ever heard of it?

Fun.

When he heads over to Uber, he becomes their vice president of driver growth.

That's made up.

Made up for sure.

Yeah, whatever whatever that is.

For sure made up.

And Lyft promptly sues Van Derzanden for stealing company secrets and accuses him of being power hungry.

I mean, he was power hungry.

That's so fair.

He was.

Right.

But can you go to any new job and you can do whatever you want with that info, right?

He thought he was Miranda Priestley for sure.

It's also not like a groundbreaking idea to be like a taxi you can order on your phone.

Like that's not insane of a concept.

But then Van Der Zanden, in response, sues them back.

Go off, King.

I know, right?

Classic.

Classic is this Blake Lively and Justin Beldoni.

There we go.

There we go.

I mean, everyone eventually settles, likely without admitting to any wrongdoing, but woof, right?

So it looks like the small-town Midwest boy is now a big city Silicon Valley man, like full-blooded at this point.

Now, at Uber, Van Der Zanden starts to think more about the efficiency of urban travel and public transit.

Now, remember, his mom is a bus driver and she probably took her little son to work many, many times.

So now he's seen firsthand both how inconvenient public transit can be and how bad for the environment rideshare companies are.

He's not going to be another cog in the machine.

So By this point, it's now around 2016, Mander Zanden is married with children.

So he quits Uber and says he's going to spend time with his family.

You know, classic in-between jobs explanation.

Yeah, a classic excuse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We love it.

So he tries to teach his daughters to ride bikes, but they want to play with their scooters.

And then lightning strikes.

Mind blown.

Like he wonders if adults would like riding around on scooters too, especially if they were electric.

This could really solve that last mile problem for a lot of folks who public transit or parking options put them too far away from their destinations in cities.

So scooters would also cut down on car traffic and pollution.

So that's good, right?

Yeah, the idea was there.

It's there.

For sure.

Absolutely.

So Van Der Zanden, he gets to work.

He finds a decently made e-scooter on a discount retailer site and thinks, yeah, these are choice.

That's how elder millennials would say it.

Choice.

Yeah.

So on a sunny, clear day in September of 2017, the residents of Santa Monica, California wake up to find they've been invaded by a small flock of electric scooters.

Okay.

That first day, there's just 10 of them sitting on a sidewalk, not docked anywhere in particular, not adorned with a logo or anything.

But soon there are 250 e-scooters strewn about the California coast.

That's actually an insane jump to like see 10 one day and then just be flooded the next.

That's nuts.

This was a moment when I stopped and I was like, are we in a simulation where they were just like, we're going to now add e-scooters to our game?

And we were all just like, okay, and just like hopped on without questions.

We all just went, okay.

We just all went, okay.

Yeah, there was truly no stopping.

We're like, yeah, all right.

We're bikes now.

Let's get bikes out here.

Yeah, yeah.

And when he first unleashed these scooters, were they attached to any app or was it just like testing, beta testing humans on scooters?

Well, there was an app, yeah.

Anyone brave enough to get close to one of these devices might find instructions on how to download an app that will let them take a spin on a scooter.

And this is Van der Zanden's big idea, microability for the masses.

Love that.

So has Van der Zanden obtained permission to, in my opinion, litter Santa Monica and Venice Beach with tripping hazards?

No.

Of course not.

No.

Does the law require him to obtain said permission?

Also, no.

Oh, you love a good case of Airbud Law when it comes to big tech.

Show me where in the rule book we can't litter scooters everywhere.

Absolutely.

So, unfortunately, that will enable one of Mr.

Vander Zenden's terrible habits.

Don't ask for permission to set up shop in a city, just ask for forgiveness.

Except everyone will love the scooter so much that forgiveness won't even be necessary.

And yes, they're definitely absolutely safe.

Wait, sorry, that's also also a no.

They're not.

They are not.

The scooters can go as fast as 15 miles per hour and they do not come with rentable helmets.

Oh, yeah, that's a win.

Okay, perfect.

Yeah.

And especially if this is for like commuting to work, you get people who blow out their hamstrings at like rec league kickball and now you want them to go 15 miles an hour.

Yeah.

Totally.

Yeah.

But here's the thing.

They are cheap, right?

A joyride will only cost you $2 to $3.

So that was nice.

And a lot of people start toying around with the scooters, from veteran skateboarders to kids who can barely walk in a straight line in the first place.

And so they start getting hurt.

Ask any ER nurse about how many e-scooter patients with serious head injuries they see each day.

But even if you're not using the scooters, you can still get hurt by one.

A bunch of people trip over the scooters that are just left behind on the sidewalk.

Cyclists are running over them on bike paths.

Vander Zenden receives cease and desist letters, lawsuits, and millions of dollars in fines.

Concerned locals file complaints and stage small protests, but his buzzy scooter startup is gaining so much interest from investors that it basically doesn't matter.

It's hard to know if they even think it's a good idea, but they do think that they're going to be getting a nice ROI.

So, his coffers stuffed with seed money, Van Der Zanden goes on a hiring spree.

I'm picturing like some glossy offices like a new WeWork.

Yeah, yeah, little ball chairs.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he brings on some of his tech bow friends from Lyft and Uber, and they get to work crafting a brand for bird rides with a people-pleasing mission.

Cleaner air, less traffic, more joy.

So bird rides will be eco-friendly, community-oriented, and something people can get behind.

They're hitting all the buzzwords.

Let's go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What else do you need to grow a business besides buzzwords?

Gotta love a mission statement.

Okay.

Now, if you think e-scooters are dangerous or a public nuisance, how do you stop Van der Zanden?

I have to imagine this is when we start chucking them into rivers, right?

Right.

Yeah.

That's my first thought.

River and, I don't know, vandalizing his home.

Kill him.

As a concerned mother.

You just like graffiti safety on his house.

Yeah.

Down with Bird.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the protests, they don't work.

The Santa Monica mayor's terse messages don't work.

And after some quick settlement payouts, Bird is cleared to fly.

There was really nothing they could do at this point.

So

how do we think the scooters are going to make money?

I probably, if I had to guess, if you

something with forgetting your scooter and then they charge you for something like that, like a planet fitness kind of thing where people sign up and they're just passively collecting their money in some sort of way.

Bird scooter, Prime Plus, Direct TV.

Some sort of Prime Plus Direct

membership or something.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think for Travis, right now he's really only caring about how much investor money he's getting.

But as for the business side of it, it's really quite simple.

It's just using the app.

Customers can rent a scooter and they charge per mile.

Oh, it's that, it's wow.

It's that simple.

So if even if it's like what, at $2 a mile, they still make more money, right?

Yeah, once unlocked, they can ride it to their destination and then just leave it wherever they want.

This, in theory, is revolutionary because we already had the bikes, right?

Companies that rent bikes, they have the special docking stations.

And usually, those stations are in high-traffic areas, strategically placed where people might need to rental bike, like near a park or a metro station.

But you can't just leave these bikes anywhere you want, or you'll continue to get charged, which discourages theft and misuse, which is good.

So pro, everyone knows where the bikes are and how to get them.

Con, if you live in an inconvenient location and need to ride somewhere that doesn't have a docking station, you can't use the bikes.

Or you get in a just hellscape situation I was in one time where I biked from like one neighborhood in Boston to another and the docking station next to my house was full.

The one two blocks over was full.

So I was just biking between the two stations, trying to convince people at one in the morning to rent a bike.

I was like a terrible used car salesman.

Like, how would you like to get?

I'm also like out of breath and sweaty.

How would you like to bike home after you've been at the bar?

And they're like, if you're not selling this at all, I'm like, please, someone take a bike.

Please take this bike.

I need to park.

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All right, so if you ignore the tripping hazards for a second, the idea that someone can get on a scooter and take it anywhere, I think it sounds cool at first.

It eliminates the inconvenience of having to dock the device far from the rider's destination, opening up a transportation option for people far from hubs.

However, if you think about it for another second, there aren't too many things that can go wrong.

Like for one thing, people can throw the scooters anywhere, even in a ditch, and that's not convenient for commuters.

There are also no safety regulations in place, like age minimums, helmet rules.

So There's also the question of like, where can you legally ride the scooter?

Like, can we ride on the sidewalk?

Do we have to be in the street?

What if there's an accident in a lawsuit?

Who's responsible?

And the answer, of course, is just

we'll figure it out.

Yeah.

Shrugging emoji.

Yeah.

So the logistical, ethical, and financial hurdles Bird will need to clear to ever become profitable, they don't seem to ruffle any investor feathers.

Within just 14 months, Vander Zanden manages to raise $300 million in Series A funding and swing a valuation of $2 billion.

What?

That's insane to raise $300 million Series A.

That's so much.

In like, what, 2000?

When was this 11, 17?

16, 17.

That's nuts.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

So it is one of the fastest growing startups ever.

By comparison, Uber took four years to get to a valuation of just $1 billion.

They did it in 14 months.

Double that.

What would you do with with $300 million?

I personally would disappear.

You would never see me running a scooter company.

I'll be off the grid.

So that's that.

For sure.

Well, by early 2018, bird scooters are in over 120 cities worldwide, including across the Middle East and Europe.

College campuses are literally littered with them.

And Inc.

magazine names Bird Company of the Year.

Let's go.

It's all working for him right now.

It's really working.

Inc.

gushes over Vander Zanden's entrepreneurial gusto and ambitious mission to remake the face of public transportation, even comparing him to Henry Ford.

Wow.

Okay.

Who did push governments to create infrastructure for cars by force of will.

So maybe not the guy we want to be compared to as a city.

Right.

And also the assembly line.

And then many people now getting unpaid lowly lowly numbers because of what he did.

So

let's go.

Great comparison.

We need to treat people like machines so we can use machines.

Yeah, there we go.

That's all there.

Division of labor.

Now, the still unsolved issue is that birds' key feature is also a huge bug.

If people can leave the bird scooters anywhere, then riders often aren't able to locate their next scooter whenever they need it.

Or they might come upon a a scooter and then realize it's broken because the previous rider literally hurled it across the pavement.

So in an attempt to solve these issues, Bird hires freelance trackers to monitor ditch scooters, charge their batteries, and relocate them to high traffic areas.

So Vander Zanden also hires roving mechanics to continually repair the scooters as they get all banged up with so much use.

And the people who track and charge the scooters can make five bucks per per scooter that's nuts what five dollars a scooter that is insultingly low i know it sounds awful well hey it does get up to 20 if the scooter has been missing for a while wow oh nice little bounty for a little scooter a little tractor yeah it's like 20 minutes on the bike that's cool yeah great

Now, there's not an obvious job title for person who tracks and charges lost scooters, but Bird does come up with a label.

Actually, there's a lot of company jargon at Bird, so let's play a game.

This sounds right up my alley.

Let's go.

Here we go.

Like many quirky startups, Bird uses a lot of internal made-up lingo.

So let's see how many we can correctly guess.

It's multiple choice, by the way.

Perfect.

Freelancers capture the scooters after 9 p.m.

and bring charged scooters back onto the streets in the morning as early as 4 4 a.m.

What are these workers called?

A.

Bird chasers, B, bird hunters, or C, bird stalkers?

Stalkers sounds way too mean.

Stalkers evokes danger.

I don't know.

There's no way they pick stalker.

I think chaser sounds like fun.

It sounds like you're going for it.

Bird chaser is fun.

I want to say bird hunter because it's, you know, wildlife.

Oh, yeah, that does make tech bros sound like they're like tougher.

And doesn't it say like we're leading an army?

Yeah.

No, I'm still going chaser.

I think they want to be more fun and whimsical.

Well, Maddie, you were right.

Ding, ding, ding, bird hunters.

Wow.

Yeah.

So in theory, bird hunters use an app to find the scooters.

In practice, the scooters are often weirdly hidden or otherwise difficult to locate.

So it's not that easy to track stuff down using just the app.

Yeah.

All right.

Second question.

What is the area called where bird hunters bring back back charged scooters, you know, to their home?

Is it A, roosts, B, perches, or C, nests?

It's got to be nests.

Yeah, I'm going to say nest.

Ding, ding, ding.

Ding.

Oh my gosh.

Comedians and smarts?

Yeah, 33% of the time.

That's just

a damn thing.

Yeah.

Third question.

Hunters retrieve the bird scooters, but who keeps an eye on the battery lives and locations of the scooters using GPS?

A, bird watchers, B, hawks, or C, Predators.

Oh my gosh.

Whoa.

I'm going to say bird watchers, but hawks is funny too.

Yeah, I think hawks, because that's like, yeah, that's like almost a superhero, but just so lame.

Yeah.

Well, Maddie, ding, ding, ding.

It was birdwatchers.

They probably were going back and forth.

And then they were.

It's in the name Bird Watchers.

There had to be like eight strategy meetings to discuss this.

Absolutely.

There's so many meetings for this.

All right.

One more question.

What do you think people who worked at Bird are collectively called?

A, the flap squad, B, the aviary, or C, the bird fam.

Give me flap squad.

I want to believe it.

I'm going to go bird fam because it sounds so just techie.

Maddie, ding, ding, ding.

Really?

It is the bird fam.

I hate it so much.

I hate bird fam.

I hate fam.

I hate it all, but I can see it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you've won a free ride on a bird scooter.

Congratulations.

Ooh, one mile.

Yeah, one mile.

So by now, while bird has yet to turn a profit, Silicon Valley is still throwing money at Van der Zanden.

But what about the hazards of people getting hit by cars while riding the scooters?

Vander Zanden's response to this is: America needs to let go of its car addiction.

Okay.

Tell me more, King.

So blame the people not using it.

Is that what you're saying?

He's basically what he's saying is we need to invest in special lanes for scooters and bikes.

Naturally.

You know, if everyone were riding scooters, there would be fewer cars on the road, and therefore it would be less likely that cars would hit people on scooters.

He also argues: hey, thousands of people die each year in car accidents, and we're not about to ban cars.

Checkmate.

The next step is he pitches for people to go to clown school so you can pack 20 people in a car.

So there's less cars.

There's less cars.

And then the whole town that lives off of birds, a bird town.

Now, despite the bravado, behind the scenes, the bird fam's shell might be starting to crack.

You're welcome.

By 2018, Lyft, Lime, and Razor have all launched versions of e-scooters similar to Bird.

Bird is officially under pressure to get some wind under its wings, if you will.

Wow.

I know.

Love it.

Love it.

Love it.

Love it.

Love it.

Wow.

We're cooking.

Love it.

Now, in order to win this war, Bird needs some stellar leadership.

And unfortunately, the leadership at Bird is a bunch of eggheads.

Insiders describe the C-suite as bros with personality problems, doofuses, and creepy.

That just sounds like every C-suite.

We're good.

Basic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're on the right track, everybody.

They're also delusional in the classic Silicon Valley way.

Vander Zanden says cities should pay him for the good fortune of having bird scooters on their streets.

I love his just delusion.

I love it.

In stand-up comedy, you see a lot of that too.

Oh, my God.

The most unearned confidence in any profession.

They should be paying me to be here.

Do you know how many Bud Lights we're going to sell?

That's great.

So some of the company's policies are pretty cutthroat.

Even though the company claims one of their big goals is to make transportation easier for lower income people, the scooters are mostly located in affluent cities like LA or DC.

When smaller cities reach out to Bird because they actually want the scooters, employees claim the company tells them to ignore the requests.

No.

Yeah.

The boy who wanted to help his mom, who was a bus driver, is like, well, not the poor people.

But just not those ones.

Yeah.

When employees suggest the company should start expanding access to predominantly black neighborhoods, an executive allegedly freaks out saying the scooters would get stolen.

Uh-oh.

Yeah.

Now,

Bird denies this happens, but true or not, these anecdotes do gain steam and employee morale starts to suffer.

Meanwhile, there's a round of sudden layoffs, which was not expected by employees because they generally thought the company was doing very well.

Right.

It's a bad sign that all is not what it seems for the company's bottom line.

Now, say this is all happening.

You're a Bird employee.

What would keep you motivated to be like, nah, there's a vision here?

A logo water bottle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, maybe some merch.

Just a little bit of merch goes a long way.

You're right.

Stock options in the company.

No, miss me with that.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

So that summer at an operations all-hands meeting, things get really tense.

Hourly employees are allowed to submit concerns online and their biggest complaint is their low pay, especially when they spend nights searching the streets for abandoned scooters and come up empty.

When salaried employees raise the issue on behalf of hourly workers at the meeting, the COO, a guy named Steve Schnell, loses his freaking mind.

Steve, who's been with Van der Zanden since the Yammer days, shouts at the employees and gives them an ultimatum.

Either they can, quote, shut up or get the fuck out.

Whoa, on like an all-hands whole company call?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

He then offers a $1,000 bonus to anyone who opts to leave the company.

Oh my God.

Who opts to leave?

A bonus, a $1,000 severance.

That's crazy.

Crazy.

Yeah.

After tax, $400,75.

Yeah.

So it's bad enough that Bird puts out a statement that Schnell regrets using offensive language and that he's been counseled about how he delivered the message.

I'm in training.

He just had it so hard as a kid.

It just,

he didn't know that you shouldn't be a jerk.

He didn't know.

I'm listening and I'm learning.

So while drunk at a summit in Amsterdam, Schnell gets on Slack and pretends to fire people as a joke.

Oh, that's a heater.

Yeah, that's a good one, man.

That's fine.

That's a good bit.

Yeah, yeah.

I thought that.

That's a bit.

Great bit.

The company's official story is that it's not Schnell who does this, but somebody who takes his phone to play a prank.

So back to Mr.

Van der Zanden.

He doesn't handle slights against him or his company very well, as you might imagine.

In the summer of 2019, when an article drops suggesting Bird has lost $100 million in that year's first quarter, Van der Zanden is so irate.

He goes on a tweeting spree from Inside an Airplane, and he posts absolutely unreadable charts and graphs.

In fact, let's take a look at him defending his company's honor.

Let's go.

Right.

Joe, could you read the tweet and describe what we're seeing here?

Bird's revenue run rate is up to 4x from this time last year,

but he doesn't say what the revenue is.

Yeah, there's no numbers on the y-axis.

Dude, this could be in pennies.

We don't know.

Yeah.

Literally, yeah.

For anyone who's like listening only, there is no y-axis.

That's so funny.

We have no idea

what it's referencing.

Also, like, this is so just like a kid in middle school trying to flex energy.

Like, I got so good.

I'm so good.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm fast.

Oh my gosh.

So, Vander Zanden does unintentionally funny things quite a bit.

When Bird launches Bird Pay, a new payment app, he's publicly humiliated.

So, you can use Bird Pay for scooter rides, but you can also use it like your wallet app.

And Vanderzanden, excited, goes out and buys a cup of coffee with Bird Pay, but he allegedly messes up the decimal point and pays thousands of dollars for a drink.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

Hilarious.

He, of course, course, denies this ever happened, but

where there's smoke.

I hope that that transaction went as like a tip to the barista, because that would imagine just like willingly robbing a CEO.

Like, that's so cool.

Why are there ridges on Reese's peanut butter cups?

Probably so they never slip from her hands.

Could you imagine I'd lose it?

Luckily, Reese has thought about that.

Wonder what else they think about?

Probably chocolate and peanut butter.

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Now, the internal temperature at Bird also seems off.

Employees start noticing wild swings in spending.

Expensive holiday parties are followed by random spending freezes.

Even vendors get cut off when Bird's bank account dips below a certain threshold.

Employees will get hired in droves and then dumped a few months later.

Hourly employees are promised full-time work and then it never happens.

There doesn't seem to be any logic to anything money-related, especially since by the fall of 2019, the company is still valued at $2.5 billion.

Wow.

While Bird is technically profitable per ride, all of the extra costs, like Bird scooters being thrown into the ocean and set on fire, things like that, tend to drain profit.

Additionally, much to the surprise of nobody, the company's equity and inclusion policies feel more performative than genuine.

Women and people of color allegedly notice they might be getting paid less than their white male counterparts.

No.

Of course, that's happening.

And when somebody raises the question of why there are no female executives during a meeting, Vander Zanden uncomfortably answers, we just got one.

Hilarious.

Referring to the chief communications officer.

Dude.

We just got one.

We just got one.

What are you talking about?

What are you guys all pissed about?

Yeah.

Unless they're big investors, Vander Zanden doesn't know how to find a woman to join his board.

He frequently complains.

So.

And then you guessed it.

COVID hits.

People aren't leaving their houses.

Whole cities shut down.

Fewer work commutes mean less need for transportation.

So it goes.

What do you think happens next?

He's going to do something dumb.

I know it.

I feel like maybe he gets loans from the government, some sort of

PPP loans.

Does he have fraudulent PPP loans?

Something like that.

No, I mean, pretty quickly.

Remember, like, when did I fly home from Barbados?

Like, March 17th, right?

Was like when everything was going down.

On March 27th,

2020, 406 Bird employees are invited to a webinar ominously titled COVID-19 Update.

No.

I would just not go.

You couldn't have anyway, because not all 406 can log on because someone at Bird messed up and didn't purchase enough seats at the webinar.

Hilarious.

That's funny.

The employees who are allowed in wait until the one female executive, Bird's chief communications officer, gives a two-minute long speech where she sounds like she's choking back tears.

And eventually the CCO admits that these 406 people who comprise a third of all worldwide Bird employees are laid off.

A 33% layoff is insane.

In 10 days of COVID.

That's crazy.

Oh my God.

Yeah, I know.

They didn't even give it till April.

No, 10 days.

I feel like March 20th, we were still talking about like what all of this is.

There wasn't even.

public accounting firms are still just open.

Yeah, that's so fast.

Yeah, people in Louisiana still were like, nothing's happening here.

Life is usual.

Yeah, they're like, what's COVID?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, to add insult to injury, as soon as the webinar ends, they all lose access to their work accounts and are locked out of their computers.

Like all anybody sees is a gray screen on their devices.

This includes, ironically, the IT person who wrote the script to lock everyone out, not knowing that he was also about to be fired.

That's funny.

Poetic, honestly.

That is, yeah.

Man, what would you do if you were that IT person, what would you do next?

I would hack the shit.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You have to.

Yeah.

I would cack it and so the scooters can go 80 miles an hour.

Through all the limiters.

Just

total chaos.

Jailbreak.

So following the March 2020 layoffs, it is a scooter race to the bottom at this point.

While hundreds of people are losing their jobs, Vander Zanden is busy shopping for real estate.

Oh.

In August of 2020, he buys a nearly $22 million home in Bel Air from comedian Trevor Noah.

Wow.

Do I have to not like Trevor Noah now?

Someone had to buy it.

Yeah, whatever.

Sold in your house.

Now, to cut even more spending, Bird switches from freelance bird hunters and mechanics to fleet managers, right?

And these fleet managers shoulder all of the responsibility for maintenance and repairs, as well as charging and keeping the scooter safe.

They also have to pay Bird for the privilege of managing their fleet before they get a percentage of profit off of each ride.

Oh my God, this is some Cutco knife stuff.

Cutco is my very first job.

Nice.

Yeah.

That's great.

Job start somewhere.

So at first, a few of the fleet managers admit that they can make make some really, really good money, especially if they themselves hire subcontractors.

But they also invest in trucks and vans to haul as many scooters as possible and even warehouse space to be able to charge them.

It is a huge financial risk.

And then also the work can be dangerous, right?

There are stories of fleet managers fighting off would-be thieves, of having to dig through bushes to find missing scooters.

Some even admit carrying guns and tasers to be able to defend themselves.

You just never know.

Grand theft, bird scooter.

So instead of acknowledging these issues, the C-suite is too busy preparing for their IPO.

In May of 2021, with the help of a company willing to merge with Bird, the company gets listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is miraculously still valued at over $2 billion.

So Vanderzanden celebrates by adding another $22 million property to his mansion collection.

This one is in Miami and once belonged to a drug kingping.

Nice.

That's cute.

It's fancy.

Yeah, fun.

But this post-IPO glow-up, it's not going to last long.

Bird's reputation is about to plummet.

So the fleet managers, who are basically doing all of the work aside from running the company's app, are given a new contract that slashes their revenue in half.

But But with so much invested in their operations, they have to accept the new terms.

Meanwhile, Bird is crapping itself.

It's now in 350 cities worldwide and they're desperate to slash their overhead.

So they allegedly roll out cheaper scooters, which break more often.

And it's the fleet managers who say they have to deal with those headaches.

These fleet managers claim that when replacement parts are hard to find, it's their problem.

When they have to recover scooters from accident scenes, Bird looks the other way.

Some fleet managers even claim they have to steal parts from other fleet managers to keep up with their quotas.

Literally.

But Bird denies sending out inferior product, inconveniencing its contractors or endangering its riders.

In 2022, Bird has to finally own up to some accounting mishaps.

They announced publicly that they've overstated their revenue for the past two years due to, quote, material weakness in its internal control over financial reporting.

Wow.

So many words.

Yeah, they said throw every word we have on this memo.

Like when your girlfriend asks you if you're cheating, it's a material weakness.

Okay.

So although Bird wasn't supposed to be doing this, they were counting customers' pre-loaded wallet balances as part of their earnings.

Oh, that's a big no-no.

Yeah.

So all of their financial statements from 2020 and 2021 are deemed unreliable due to phantom revenue.

So embarrassed and broke, Bird starts pulling scooters out of major cities and canceling contracts with fleet managers, which

after investing so much of their personal money into their businesses and then having the rug pulled out from under them, some of these fleet managers are saddled with debt.

Van Der Zanden, he gives up, right?

He resigns as CEO and leaves the board of directors.

And then in September of 2023, after Bird's value drops from over $2 billion

to less than $15 million, Bird is delisted from the stock exchange and Van der Zanden's wealth evaporates.

Right.

Nightmare.

That's a nightmare.

It's a good thing he has two $22 million houses to sell.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So by this point, Bird Bird has already squeezed its fleet managers dry, but it somehow gets worse.

In December, when Bird files for bankruptcy, many fleet managers are eliminated entirely, each one losing a huge investment in their fleet.

Like, for example, one manager repairs 100 scooters at Bird's request, and then his contract is canceled a few weeks later.

Others keep having to pay those leases on warehouses and trucks despite not having any income.

So let's do a little, where are they now?

Yeah.

Bird is still around.

Really?

Currently under new management.

In April of 2024, the company was acquired by Third Lane Mobility.

Now, we have yet to see if these new folks will be able to turn things around.

They do aim to correct a few of Vander Zanden's big mistakes.

The scooters now have swappable batteries and are parked at docking stations, making it easier for fleet managers to be able to find them and charge them.

Bird also wants to be nicer to city officials.

Yay.

Yeah, now that they don't have money to hit them with.

Yeah, seriously.

I saw this today, actually.

I was going to a workout class.

I saw a little row of bird scooters.

Bird has also partnered with Lyft.

Van der Zanden's old company.

Wow.

So in many cities, you can pay for your bird scooter through the Lyft app.

Yes.

Wow.

What if at the start of the movie they were friends and then they weren't and then they were friends again?

I know.

Yeah.

So, I mean, whatever happens next, hopefully fewer scooters will be thrown into the ocean.

That's that's all we could hope for.

Right.

Now, in 2024, no longer rolling in the dough, Vander Zanden sold both of his mansions.

Sad.

I'm going to hold some space

for Travis.

I know.

Other than that, he's kept his beak clean.

Not a lot of recent news coming out of Mr.

Vander Zanden yet yet because he's probably pitching new new stuff left and right to people yeah he's

game those tech guys fall off and then they come back with some sort of new thing yep he's put on those old cargo shorts pulled out that notebook yeah said i'm gonna go to shark tank yeah

that brainstorming so here on the big flop we try to be positive people and then on a high so are there any silver linings that you can think of that came about from travis van der zanden and bird scooters?

Maybe more bike lanes.

I got maybe that.

Man, silver linings are that

we're talking about non-car transportation.

We got to break the cycle of addiction, y'all.

I agree.

I totally agree.

Yeah.

You know, we were thinking like, even though e-scooters as a mass transit idea might not be the most practical one,

there are still places that they could be useful and that people are finding them, you know,

worth it.

Yeah, I think thinking about where they should go, just maybe just putting more thought into all of it for this next go-of-a-little bit of thought.

Yeah, tiny bit.

That's a crazy idea.

Tiny.

So now that you both know about Bird Scooter's logistical nightmare, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop, or a mega flop?

I mean, $2 billion valuation down to delisting on the stock exchange.

That's big flop.

Close to massive, but big flop for sure.

Yeah.

I would say big flop if I was Steve.

If I was Steve, I would be hard.

Steve Schnell.

Steve Snell.

And then, yeah, I would have a hard time coming back from it.

But I think overall, a blip in societal things.

Sure, sure, sure.

All right.

Well, thank you so much to our high-flying guests, Joe Fenty and Maddie Smith, for joining us here on the Big Flop.

And of course, thanks to all of you for listening and watching.

If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review or subscribe.

We'll be back next week with another flop.

We're talking about a politician with multiple scandals who tried to mount a comeback this year.

It's Anthony Weiner.

Nice.

I knew you were going to say him.

Bye.

Bye, everyone.

Bye.

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