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Joey Zwillinger

Co-Founder & CEO, Biologica · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveinvestorengineerLinkedIn ↗biologica.com ↗

Joey Zwillinger co-founded sustainable footwear brand Allbirds alongside Tim Brown in 2015, serving as CEO and taking the company public in 2021 before stepping down in 2024. He subsequently launched women's hormonal health company Biologica with his wife Liz and serves as a founding general partner of venture fund Good Friends.

11statements → 7claims → 6claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 3.91/5average certainty → 1.55/5average debate potential → 4said about them ↓

4 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed how the 7 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

7 assertions · 1 opinion · 2 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 7 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 6 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Joey argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Zwillinger: Corporate charter legally binds Allbirds management to environmental responsibility
“Our charter says we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders, and we have a equal responsibility to the environment. And so if Tim or I are no longer in the business, and some other person takes over, ah, they still have a responsibility to do what …”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 59:26 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Joey Zwillinger on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Joey Zwillinger said on How I Built This that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Zwillinger: Major footwear brands only pay lip service to sustainability
“I just realized through this super frustrating experience that the brands, big brands, they said they cared about sustainability, but in reality they were just paying lip service to the idea.”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 38:59 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Insight
Zwillinger: No inherent tension exists between financial returns and sustainability
“We don't believe that there needs to be the tension between financial success and success for other purpose-driven aspects of our business, and namely the environment for us. And I think that's true for a lot of businesses.”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 58:40 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Assertion Supported
Zwillinger: Corporate charter legally binds Allbirds management to environmental responsibility
“Our charter says we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders, and we have a equal responsibility to the environment. And so if Tim or I are no longer in the business, and some other person takes over, ah, they still have a responsibility to do what …”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 59:26 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Insight
Zwillinger: Better to co-own a big business than solo-own a small one
“Doing it alone is really lonely, and I'd always been of the opinion that if I was gonna do a business, I wanted to do it with someone, cause I knew my shortcomings were substantial, and that I would much rather have a piece of something big than a lot of somet…”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 43:07 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Zwillinger: Allbirds generated $1 million in sales in its first month
“We done a million dollars in sales in the first month.”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 51:36 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Assertion Partly supported
Zwillinger: Prior biofuel startup Solazime raised over $1B and IPO'd in 2011
“I joined in 2009 and we ended up going public in 2011. We raised over a billion dollars of money for the business.”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 12:04 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Assertion Supported
Zwillinger: $1B biofuel startup Solazime went bankrupt and sold for parts
“The entire business. It got, it went bankrupt, and then has been acquired since for some of the remnants of the technology.”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 12:33 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Assertion Supported
Zwillinger: 20 billion shoes made annually; Americans buy eight pairs yearly
“There's twenty billion pairs of shoes that are made every year. And in the U.S. Alone, the average American, kid, woman, man, they buy eight pairs per year.”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 40:01 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Assertion Partly supported
Zwillinger: Allbirds sold exclusively the Wool Runner for its first 14 months
“We sold one style, the Wool Runner, for 14 months. We didn't do anything else except sell the Wool Runner.”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 55:40 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Disclosure
Zwillinger scouted Penn engineering departments to spin out a clean tech startup
“I was searching with the, all the engineering schools at Penn to find a clean tech oriented company that I could help take the technology out of the university and start the business.”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 10:37 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger
Assertion Supported
Allbirds co-founders met because their wives were Dartmouth college roommates
“Back in maybe, 2000, early, early part of that decade Lindsey and Liz, my wife, were roommates and doormates in college at Dartmouth.”
Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 23:26 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger

The other half of the tape: Joey Zwillinger's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 3 episodes on How I Built This. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Guy Raz 3

Statements about Joey Zwillinger, by other people (1)

Insight
Brown: Founders greatly underestimate the complexity of manufacturing shoes
“And I had greatly Underestimated, as I'm sure Joey would attest, how complicated it is, actually, to make a shoe.”
Tim Brown Jun 10, 2019 ▶ 18:08 Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00112220192020episodesmentions
01220192020episodes it came up in
000.511220192020episodesmentions per episode
2020 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Allbirds: Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger Jun 10, 2019 18m
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