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

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

In 2017, Santa Monica residents woke up to find their streets invaded by mysterious electric scooters. The culprit? Travis VanderZanden, a former Uber exec with a plan to revolutionize urban transit. But between drunk-tweeting executives, phantom revenue reports, and scooters being hurled into oceans, Bird's flight path was destined for turbulence.Joe Fenti and Maddy Smith join Misha to watch Bird's $2 billion flight plan nosediveBe the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterListen to The Big Flop on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/the-big-flop/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Attention. All big flop stands. Are you ready to take your love for The Big Flop to the next level? Well, Wondery Plus is here to make your dreams come true. With ad-free episodes, early access, and exclusive bonus content, you'll be swimming in a sea of content. Your uninterrupted flop fix awaits. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts. Y'all, some people will walk straight into starting a business with subpar plans and the audacity. It's always, how much can we raise in Series A funding and never, hey, does this business, uh, work? It's all billion dollar valuations and $22 million palatial homes until you realize you've accidentally been overreporting your revenue. So, oops, 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 dollar valuation to being worth over $2 billion in less than six months. Who was 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 it's crazy

we are on a sinking ship Searchlight Pictures presents the roses only in theaters August 29 from the director of Meet the Parents and the writer of Poor Things comes the roses starring Academy Award winner Olivia Coleman Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch

Andy Sandberg, Kate McKinnon, Alison Janney. A hilarious new comedy filled with drama, excitement, and a little bit of hatred, proving that marriage isn't always a bed of roses. See The Roses, only in theaters August 29. Discover, rate, and never miss a beat with the free IMDB app. Curate your watch list, get personalized notifications, and find your next must-watch show or movie. Whether you're catching up on a series solo or planning a family movie night. IMDB is your ultimate entertainment companion. Download the app now and find your next favorite.

From Wondering and at Will Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicled the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar, and the first person to ever successfully land a 720 bar-spin tail whip. But don't fact check that at your bestie Misha. 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. The crowds are going wild. I can hear them through the interwebs. So, okay, before we jump into bird scooters, in 30s,

30 seconds or less, please solve the public transportation crisis. More. That's it. More. Yeah. Yeah, more is good. Freaking trains. More trains 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. Polarious. Great. I was like, oh, okay, I guess I'll be careful today. Yeah, that's foreshadowing, for sure.

For sure. So, yeah, today we explain 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 Zandin 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 Zandin 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 Van 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 pot in the office, nobody. that's usually the, yeah, yeah. So, Van der Zand, 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 you 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 TechBro Hub here these days. Yeah, you guys are like a walking Patagonia vest. Literally.

That Austin is the first place that I ever did a Lime scooter. Okay. That makes sense. Not to name drop other scooters on here. It's all one and the same. 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 Vander Zanden that he offers him a job. And Van der Zandt instantly levels up becoming Yammer's chief revenue officer. Nice. Yeah, that's a sick low-up, dude. I know, right? It sounds like Van der Salmon or whatever is like good at, you know, talking his way up, right? He's like the scooter Zuckerberg. So after a few years of job security,

Vendr Zandon 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? Because 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, Vanderdandruff, 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 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 would have believed in it. 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. I agree. 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 Zendan moves up one full rung on the tech bro lab.

and he becomes the chief operating officer for Lyft. What? All right. Yeah. He's good. I know. He makes moves. He's like, I've had two jobs, and here I am.

Here I am. C-O-O. 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. I know. It's like watching the first half of Titanic. You're like, you're like, great.

This is like a good. This should be called party boat. This is dope. So, yeah, I mean, now at Lyft, Van der Zandin can start rubbing bigger elbows to make some actual sparks. After only one year at Lyft, Vandr Zandin 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. 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. Yeah. Okay. 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.

Okay. Made up for sure. Yeah, whatever that is. For sure, made up. And Lyft promptly sues Van der Zandin 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 Zandon in response, sues them back. Go off, King. I know, right? Classic.

Classic is this Blake lively and Justin Baldoni? 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 Zandin 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 ride share companies are. He's not going to be another cog in the machine. So by this point, it's now around 2016. Van der 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, 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 Zannin, 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. It's late. 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 questioning. We all just 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, yeah. And when he first unleashed these scooters, whether they attached to any app or is 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, microbility for the masses. Love that. All right.

So has Van der Zandon 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. Van der Zendon's terrible habits. Don't ask for permission to set up shop in a city, just ask for forgiveness. Except everyone will love the scooters so much that forgiveness won't even be necessary. and yes, they're definitely absolutely safe. Wait, sorry, that's also a no.

They are 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 a thing, they are cheap, right? A joy ride will only cost you two to three dollars. 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. Van der Zendin receives cease and desist letters,

lawsuit, 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 we work. Yeah, yeah, little ball chairs. Yeah, standard. A cool office. Yeah, Pinkpong. So he brings on some of his techbo 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. 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. Yeah. That's my first thought. River and, I don't know, vandalizing his home. Kill him. As a concerned mother. You're 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 they, 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, you know, 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 cool. 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 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 a 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. Khan, 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 You're not selling this at all. I'm like, please, someone take a bike.

Please take this bike. I need to park. Oh, my gosh. Reports suggest that Canadian taste buds are bored to tears. My mouse can't handle another dull drink. Summertime smoothie experts everywhere are recommending a watermelon wake-up from booster juice. It's so smooth, cool, and refreshing.

And ridiculously delicious. Enjoy the watermelon wave and watermelon experience. Explosion smoothies, available all summer long at a booster juice near you. Stay cool, Canada. Booster Juice, Canadian-born. Blending since 1999. The town of Agda in France is famous for sun, sand, sea, and sex. But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn. The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.

His wife claims he's been bewitched. by a beautiful clairvoyant. Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting. I am the Archangelo Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos. As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.

Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson and journalist Leo Sheik for the Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption and magic. Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mayor exclusively and ad free right now on Wondry Plus. Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Wondry app. 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. option for people far from hubs. However, if you think about it for another second, there are 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 and a lawsuit who's responsible. And the answer, of course, is just, we'll figure it out. Strugging 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, van der Zanden manages to raise $300 million in Series A funding and swing a valuation of $2 billion. million dollars. What? That's insane to raise 300 million series A. That's so much. In like what, 2001 was it's 11, 17? 1617. That's 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. Wow. Double that. What would you do 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 them right now. It's really working. Inc. gushes over Van der Zandin's entrepreneurial gusto and ambitious mission to remake the face of public transportation, even comparing him to Henry Ford. Wow. Oh, 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, honestly. Right. Right. And also the assembly line and many people now getting them paid lowly numbers because of what. Oh, you did. So let's go. Great comparison. We need to treat people like machines so we can use machines. Yeah, there we go. It'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 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 Van der Zannin 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 scooter. That's nuts. What? $5 a scooter? That is insultingly low. I know. 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. Yeah, a little treasure on. Yeah. It's like 20 minutes on the bike. That's cool. Yeah, great. Now, there's not an obvious job title for a person who tracks and charges lost scooters, but Bird does come up with a label. Actually, there's a lot of company jargon at Byrd, so let's play a game. It 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 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. Yeah, 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 charged scooters, you know, to their home? Is it A, roosts, B, purchase, or C, nests? It's got to be nests.

Yeah, I'm going to say nest. Ding, ding, ding. Oh, my gosh. Comedians and smarts? Yeah, 33% of the time. That's just so fair. Third question. Hunters retrieve the bird scoot.

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, it's like almost a superhero, but just so lame. Yeah. Well, Maddie, ding, ding, ding, it was bird watchers.

They probably were going back and forth, and then they were like, it's in the name, Bird, Watchers. There had to be like eight strategy meetings to discuss this. Absolutely. There was 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's, So, just techy. Maddie, ding, ding, ding. Really? Birdfam? It is the Birdfam. I hate it so much.

I hate Birdfam. I hate it all. But I can see it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've won a free ride on a bird scooter. Congratulations. One mile.

One mile. So by now, while Bird has yet to turn a profit, Silicon Valley is still throwing money at Van der Zandon. But what about the hazards of people getting hit by cars while riding the scooters? Van der Zendin'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. A bird town. Now, despite the bravado, behind the scenes, the bird fams, shed. might be starting to crack.

You're welcome. By 2018, lift, lime, and razor have all launched versions of e-scooters similar to Byrd. 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, Byrd 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. Basically. Yeah. We're on the right track, everybody. They're also delusional in the classic Silicon Valley way.

Van der Zendin says cities should pay him for the good fortune of having bird scooters on their streets. I love his just delusion. I love it. Like, in stand-of-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 cutthrow. 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 L.A. or D.C. When smaller cities reach out to Byrd 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. So just a little bit of merch goes a long way. Stock options in the company. No, miss me with that. 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 Zandon 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. $1,000. That's crazy. Yeah. After tax, 475.

Yeah. So it's bad enough that Byrd 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. That's really, 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, great 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? 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 on the y-axis. Dude, this could be in pennies. We don't know. Literally. Yeah. For anyone who's like listening only, there is no y-axis on this crap. We have no idea what it's, what it's referencing. Also, like, this is so just like 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, Van der 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 Van der Zanden, 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, denies this ever happened, but where there's smoke.

I hope that that transaction went as like a tip to the barista, because I would imagine just like willingly robbing a CEO. Like, that's so cool. How hard is it to kill a planet? Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene. Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our time. And crimes like that, they don't just happen. We call things accidents. There is no accident.

This was 100% preventable. They're the result of choices by people. Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime. These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet. Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us, and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now

by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Movie night, date night, or solo marathon. IMDB is your ultimate entertainment companion. Discover new favorites. Rate what you've watched. And never miss an episode with the free IMDB app. Curate your watch list with a tap. Get personalized notifications for your favorite shows.

And find your next must-watch movie or series. From blockbusters to hidden gems. We've got you covered. Download the app now. Register for free and find your next favorite. Now, the internal temperature at Byrd 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,

Van der Zandin 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, Van der Zandon 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 city 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... Oh, oh.

PPP loans. Yeah, fraudulent PPP loans. Something like that. No, I mean, pretty quickly. Remember, like, when did I fly home from Barbados? Like, March 17th, right? It was like when everything was going down. On March 27th, 2020,

406 bird employees are invited to a webinar our 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.

Nuts. 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 until April. No, 10 days. I feel like March 20th, we were still talking about, like, what all of this is.

There wasn't even. Yeah, public accounting firms were still just open. Yeah. That's so fast. Yeah, people in Louisiana still were like, nothing's happening here. Life as usual. Yeah, they're like, what's COVID? 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 so the scooters can go 80 miles an hour. Remove all the limiters. Just total chaos. Jail break.

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, Van der Zandin 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. Mm-hmm. Do I have to not like Trevor Noah now?

Or, you know, he's probably fine. Someone had to buy it. Yeah, whatever. You sold him your house. Yeah. 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 scooters 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. Got to start somewhere.

So at first, a few of the fleet managers admit that they can 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 two billion dollars. So Van der Zanden celebrates by adding another $22 million property to his mansion collection. This one is in Miami and once belonged to a drug kingpin. Nice. Nice. That's cute. It's fancy. Yeah, fun. But this post-IPO glow-up, it's not going to last long. Birds' 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 with so much invested in their operations, they have to accept the new terms. Meanwhile, Bird is crapping itself. It's not 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 if you're cheating, it's a material weakness. Okay.

So although Bird wasn't supposed to be doing this, they were counting customers preloaded 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 Dusandin, he gives up, right? He resigns as CEO and leaves the board of directors. And then in September of 2023, after Byrd's value drops from over $2 billion to less than $15 million, Bird is delisted from the stock exchange, and Vanders Zandin's wealth evaporates. Gone. Right. Bye. Nightmare. That's a nightmare. It's a good thing he has two $22 million houses to sell. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So by this point, 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. For like, for example, one manager repairs 100 scooters at Byrd's request, and then his contract has 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 Anders-Zandan'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, and I saw a little row of bird scooters. Bird has also partnered with Lyft, Van der Zandin'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 all we can hope for. Right. Now, in 2024, no longer rolling in the dough, van der Zandon sold both of his mansions. Sad.

I'm going to hold some space for Travis. Yeah, RIP. I know. Other than that, he's kept his beak clean. Not a lot of recent news coming out of Mr. Van der Zandon. Yet? Yet, because he's probably pitching new stuff left and right to people. Yeah, he's got a new scheme.

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. Then I'm going to go to Shark Tank. Yeah. That brainstorming. So here on the Big Flop, we tried 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 Zandon and Bird Scooters?

Maybe more bike lanes? Yeah. I got, maybe that. Man, silver linings are that we're talking about. about non-car transportation. We got to break the cycle of addiction, y'all. I agree. Totally agree.

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 about a little bit of thought yeah tiny a thought crazy idea tiny so now that

you both know about bird scooters logistical nightmare would you consider this a baby flop a big flop or a mega flop i mean two 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. Sheeshnail. And then, yeah, I would have a hard time coming back from it. But I think overall, a blippin societal things. Sure, sure, sure. All right. Well, thank you so much to our high-flying guest. 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 fly. We're talking about a politician with multiple scandals who tried to mount a comeback this year.

It's Anthony Wiener. Nice. I knew you were going to say him. Bye. Bye, everyone. Bye. If you like the Big Flop, you can listen early and add free on Wondery Plus. Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and At Will Media, hosted by Misha Brown, produced by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins, and Tina Turner, written by Anna Rubinova, and Luke Burns, engineered by Zach Capone, with support from Andrew Holtzberger. The video podcast is edited by Olivia Vessel.

Managing producer is Molly Getman. Executive producers are Kate Walsh and Will Mnati for At Will Media. Legal support by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korsenik, Summers, and Raymond. Senior producers for Wondery are Adam Azaraph, Matt Beagle, and Jennifer

Klein Walker. Managing producer is Sarah Mathis, and the senior managing producer is Callum Pleist. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Friesong Sink. Theme song is Sinking Ship by Cake. Executive producers are Lizzie Bassett, Dave Easton, and Marshall Louis for Wondering. Hey grownups, I'm Mindy Thomas. And I'm Guy Raz.

And we're the host of the number one podcast for Curious Kids, Wow in the World. Mindy, can you believe we have our very own Wow in the World stem toys? I totally can't believe it, Guy Raz. Eight years ago when we started making Wow in the World, we were on a mission to spread the latest wow discoveries in science and technology and innovation. and now we get to help kids discover these wows right at home? That's right. From the ultimate high-flying air rocket to the light-up terrarium,

there's something for every wowser in your world to play and tinker with. Grunups, you can find wow in the world stem toys available now at select Walmart locations or online at walmart.com. Shop the wow now.