Andrew Sharp
Hello, and welcome to a free preview of Sharp Tech.
Ben Thompson
Apple's price increases this week are one of the more bearish indicators for Apple that I've seen in a long time.
Andrew Sharp
Okay.
Ben Thompson
And the reason is that, number one, I don't think they saw this memory increase coming at all, right?
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
1. Apple Missed The Memory Shock
Ben Thompson
Because they would've made the moves that they made in the past. Remember Jensen Huang being out there drinking soju with the Samsung CEO or whatever, like all those pictures?
Andrew Sharp
Oh, yeah.
Ben Thompson
He saw it coming. He was out there securing supply such that everyone else is having a hard time.
Andrew Sharp
Yep. That's wild, yeah.
Andrew Sharp
And we didn't see Tim Cook drinking soju nine months ago.
Ben Thompson
... didn't see Tim Cook out there securing memory supplies. So, number one, I don't think they saw this coming generally.
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
Number two, I made a steak-dinner bet with John Gruber that the new Macs they introduced in March were going to include a price increase.
Andrew Sharp
Yeah.
Ben Thompson
How could they not, given what was happening with memory? It blew my mind that they did not increase prices then, because layered on that is one of Apple's brand promises: We don't change prices.
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
Now, part of that is that we don't decrease prices, so you can always buy with confidence.
Andrew Sharp
Right.
Ben Thompson
And I believe this: There's never been a strategic resale because I don't want someone in the moment of decision—
Andrew Sharp
Someone who paid full price—you don't want them to feel like they got gypped.
Ben Thompson
No, no, it's not that. Someone is sitting on that page deciding whether to subscribe or not. I don't want even a hint in the back of their mind that they could just wait for the sale.
Andrew Sharp
I'll wait for the August deal.
Ben Thompson
That's right.
Andrew Sharp
Yeah. Okay.
Ben Thompson
Like a once-a-year sort of thing, right? No. My price is my price. It's only going in one direction. It will increase at times; it is never going to be cheaper.
Now, Apple is not cutting prices, for sure. But they also usually never want to change prices while a product is in the market. You should be able to count on Apple's prices being what they are.
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
You go to Dell, and a computer is a different price every single day, right?
Andrew Sharp
Sure.
Ben Thompson
That's fine.
Andrew Sharp
Yep.
Ben Thompson
That's part of their promise, right? You can customize whatever you want, and the price will be whatever you want. Who knows? If you need a computer, just buy it.
Apple doesn't do that. So, by not raising prices in March, what that suggests to me is that even in March, when all this agentic stuff was working its way into the market—
Andrew Sharp
There was just no appreciation for what was coming.
Ben Thompson
They seemed to be like, "Well, maybe it'll blow over," right?
Andrew Sharp
It's pretty unbelievable.
Ben Thompson
Maybe it's like the old cycles, right?
Andrew Sharp
It's going to be 6 months, and it'll be temporary.
Ben Thompson
Right. We have a lot of
Andrew Sharp
temporary
Ben Thompson
inventory. Let's wait as long as we can to see if we can make it through. They said on the earnings call, "Oh, this is definitely going to impact the second quarter a little bit, but it's definitely going to impact the third quarter."
I think they're like, "We're still in the second quarter," and they're like, "Oh, we're out there. Prices are up hundreds of dollars." It suggests to me this is a company that still has no idea—
Andrew Sharp
It just doesn't get it.
Ben Thompson
—what's going on with AI.
Andrew Sharp
Yeah.
2. Apple Still Lags In AI
Ben Thompson
The Siri thing, like I said, that's 2024 technology. Now, we said in 2024 that this stuff is so good, there are tons of products to be built on what exists right now. And that governs the fact that Apple is going to ship in 2026 what they promised in 2024, and it's going to be great.
Andrew Sharp
It's pretty good, yeah.
Ben Thompson
And because AI is amazing. It is also nowhere close to what AI is capable of right now in 2026, much less going forward.
It's not just that Apple missed the memory thing. Fair enough. But the fact that they didn't raise prices in March, when they could have at least preserved their brand promise that when we launch a product at a price, it stays at that price no matter what, and they're having to increase prices out of band in this very awkward sort of way, suggests that they just don't know what's going on.
Andrew Sharp
Flying blind.
Ben Thompson
Yeah. It's not great.
Andrew Sharp
Apple has become a bunch of normies out there in Cupertino. Look, you lost the bet with Gruber, so you do have to buy the steak. Do you think Gruber should have to give you a third of the steak—a good chunk of the rib eye that you buy him—whenever this bet is finally paid off?
Ben Thompson
Absolutely not. A bet is a bet, number one. Number two, it's not enough to be right; timing matters. I got the timing wrong.
Andrew Sharp
Timing does matter.
Ben Thompson
So it's still—
Andrew Sharp
I don't know, though. I think directionally you had some good instincts. Chris says, "We'll keep it going." We went long on the first question, but let's bounce through the rest of the mailbag here.
Ben Thompson
I know, you always promise these fun episodes, and then—
Andrew Sharp
I know. Well, look, that one was very interesting to me, and obviously it's germane to the China podcast as well.
3. China Will Dominate Memory
Ben Thompson
Well, just on the China bit, remember, DRAM is fungible, right?
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
No one's going to let Chinese DRAM—well, number one, the Chinese can't make HBM yet. They can make HBM1 or HBM2. We're on HBM4 now.
Andrew Sharp
Yeah.
Ben Thompson
So there's all that complexity that goes into it.
Andrew Sharp
The concern would be that this allows them to climb the ladder and make better HBM long-term.
Ben Thompson
We just need DRAM, right?
Andrew Sharp
Yeah.
Ben Thompson
And so if the big 3 are going to be super focused on HBM, China said, "We can make DRAM." Maybe their DRAM isn't the most advanced, or maybe it has bigger problems.
Andrew Sharp
How do you get more advanced, and how do you solve your problems?
Ben Thompson
You make a bunch of it.
Andrew Sharp
Okay.
Ben Thompson
And so, like a lot of China—if you go back to our discussion of China building up its fab capacity before—it was, well, China's willing to bear the cost of selling old stuff.
Andrew Sharp
Just eating it at the bottom of the ladder.
Ben Thompson
Eating it.
Andrew Sharp
Sure.
Ben Thompson
Because you have to move down the learning curve, right?
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
And no one else is going to eat it, but China will eat it, and so they'll make it down. China now can move down the learning curve profitably. They can sell old tech at profitable prices because there's such a shortage in the market.
Soon enough, they're going to be good at memory, and they're going to be competitive with these companies. If Nvidia's not allowed to take it, Huawei will take it; other people will take it.
We're creating the conditions. This is the problem with cutting stuff off: cutting stuff off legislatively through export controls, cutting stuff off from a business perspective because you're trying to capture the market. You are creating the conditions for inevitable competition.
I think the die is cast. China is going to be a dominant player in memory. There's no question, because the conditions could not be better to become one.
Andrew Sharp
Hmm.
Well, you mentioned earlier that it doesn't really make sense for American companies to invest in memory, at least from an economic standpoint. But potentially, from a security standpoint, it will at some point over the next 5 or 10 years here.
4. Caffeine Becomes A Habit
Chris says, "How much caffeine do you guys consume on a daily basis?" as you drink from a coffee cup while I read the question. "What's the pattern? Morning and afternoon coffees? What's the energy-drink policy? My wife is making me quit having a Red Bull every single day, so this is top-of-mind fun stuff for me."
What do you think, Ben? I don't know how much of a caffeine guy you are.
Ben Thompson
Yeah, you're the one that needs to answer this question. One of my all-time favorite segments on The Greatest of All Talk was when you guys did—in the summer, it's a little more loosey-goosey. It's kind of like a holiday mailbag, but every week when nothing's happening in the NBA.
Andrew Sharp
Right.
Ben Thompson
And so you have your top 5 things, and you did a top-5 candy-bar episode.
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
I've never been more flabbergasted in my life than when the episode starts and you're like, "I'm not much of a candy guy." And I'm like, "This guy has—"
Andrew Sharp
No, what I said was—
Ben Thompson
—has something—
Andrew Sharp
I love candy, but I don't really eat candy anymore.
Ben Thompson
Whatever it was.
Andrew Sharp
I don't know.
Ben Thompson
It was the biggest crock of BS I've ever heard in my life. No one loves eating terrible stuff more than you. And what was great about that episode is you basically undressed yourself in front of the entire audience. You had so many candy takes. You had so many anecdotes in recent memory—
Andrew Sharp
That's what happened.
Ben Thompson
—about candy, that it was so obvious that you have a problem, and you exposed what a lie it was immediately.
Ben Thompson
It was like Hunter Biden talking about crack cocaine on that episode. I talked for about 45 minutes about all my favorite candy, memories of candy, and it got pretty deep.
Andrew Sharp
A hierarchy of candy interspersed with the right times to have the candy and proper storage for different types of candy. It was unbelievable.
Andrew Sharp
Oh my, that's right. You gotta keep certain candies in the freezer, no question about it. On caffeine, I'm not as passionate. I am just as addictive.
Ben Thompson
Oh, okay. Not as passionate, but as addicted. I'll give you that.
Ben Thompson
Yes.
Andrew Sharp
Deeply addicted. I consume a Venti Starbucks iced coffee every single morning, and then I will go in the early afternoon with a Grande Americano from Starbucks, and then I will sometimes layer on a yerba mate drink in the late afternoon. They have these 20-ounce teas.
Ben Thompson
Whoa, just a second. Wait a minute. We already had a Sharp Tech discussion about 2 daily Starbucks visits.
Andrew Sharp
Yeah.
Ben Thompson
I didn't realize there was frequently a third. Holy cow.
Andrew Sharp
Well, there is a third—it depends on the day—but every now and then, I would say 3 out of the 5 workdays, I will have a late-afternoon yerba mate. In general, though, the challenge with caffeine is I hit a point of diminishing returns if I drink too much of it, and my brain just shuts down at a certain point. So I do try to moderate it. And energy drinks, like a Red Bull—Chris, I think your wife is probably right about a Red Bull a day being a bad idea. I'm not a doctor, but I think she's on the money with that one, so I stick to coffee for the most part.
Ben Thompson
The other thing, when I was considering moving back, it was a very fraught decision, very difficult for lots of different reasons. One of them was that we would record Sharp Tech at night for you because you're on the East Coast, in particular. Particularly rough with Taiwan. And sometimes it's like, yeah, Andrew went too far on the caffeine. He's barely functional right now because he's too on edge. And I'm like, "I need to get back so you can be aware."
Andrew Sharp
That's 100% true. There would be some nights where I'd be just completely fried and trying to solve it with more Diet Coke at 9:45 or 10 o'clock at night. I feel great now as we sit here recording this, so I'm glad to have you back in the United States of America.
Ben Thompson
Yes.
Andrew Sharp
But are you still dodging the question?
Ben Thompson
No, not at all.
Andrew Sharp
How much caffeine do you drink?
Ben Thompson
I make a pot of coffee in the morning. I absolutely love it. I'm not super fussy about my coffee. I buy very good beans. I grind them right before I make them, but I use a coffee maker. I think I have the—
Andrew Sharp
Okay.
Ben Thompson
The Moccamaster. I like them, so I buy, like, 5 of them. There's a new one out there that's like a Moccamaster, but it uses all-stainless-steel parts on the inside, so there's no plastic, which is good for microplastics, whatever. It's still sitting in my garage. I haven't actually set it up yet.
Andrew Sharp
You'll get there.
Ben Thompson
The microplastics aren't really moving the needle one direction or the other—
Andrew Sharp
Yeah, that's fair.
Ben Thompson
—as far as I'm concerned.
Ben Thompson
I'm kind of in the same boat, to be totally honest. I make a pot of coffee in the morning, and then I'm usually good for the day. I will occasionally get a Diet Coke, particularly if I'm writing at night and in the evening. I don't like caffeine past noon because I don't want to have any issues falling asleep or whatever. But it might all be theoretical. I'm not sure if I have issues falling asleep. I fortunately have the constitution where I don't really get addicted to anything.
On the weekend sometimes, I wake up slowly or whatever, and I just don't have any coffee. One of my good friends, if he goes longer, he's like, "Oh, shoot, it is at night." He's like, "I forgot to have my afternoon coffee." I'm like, "But you're going to bed." He's like, "I know, but I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night with a headache because I went too hard." I'm like, "Oh my God, you have a problem."
Andrew Sharp
That's what happens.
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
Andrew Sharp
Been there.
Ben Thompson
Yeah, so I'm pretty sure I'm not addicted. I could go a week without coffee; I have.
Andrew Sharp
Okay.
Ben Thompson
No issue. I greatly enjoy it. It's one of the pleasures of life. But that is basically it. I love coffee.
Andrew Sharp
There we go.
Ben Thompson
I have it in the morning. Just regular coffee.
Andrew Sharp
Healthy relationship with it.
Ben Thompson
If I go—
Andrew Sharp
Healthier than me
Ben Thompson
An Americano is my go-to—Starbucks Americano.
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
Starbucks is a great store. I think I've given this take before. I have.
Andrew Sharp
You have.
Ben Thompson
Not because it's great—
Andrew Sharp
But—
Ben Thompson
—but because it's the same every time.
Andrew Sharp
It's a Starbucks-forward podcast here.
Ben Thompson
That's right. We are pro Starbucks.
Andrew Sharp
Save your bespoke coffee houses. All right, keeping it moving, we have Daniel, who says, "Sharp, I couldn't help but notice that Ben implied on the last episode that you have a messy garage when you said you didn't want to charge your car. Throwing a little shade at you."
I don't think that's throwing shade; that's just a—
Ben Thompson
Well, I'll explain that.
Andrew Sharp
statement of fact.
Ben Thompson
"My summer mailbag question for Ben," he says, "is what is his version of that garage? Is there something that Ben walks by at his house all the time and thinks, 'I need to take care of it,' but he never touches it? If the answer is no, I won't be shocked, but it will be revealing in its own way, perhaps. Maybe he could use a backup antenna on his roof, or a third generator, or more storage space for generators. You always could use a backup generator for your backup generator."
Ben Thompson
Well, it is funny. I did just buy— we're going into the middle of nowhere. I think they supposedly have solar panels and batteries. I guess there's a backup generator, but just in case, I did get this big Anker battery. It's this big.
Andrew Sharp
Great.
Ben Thompson
It has its own solar panels, so you can charge it and always have power. But I figure it's a backup to the backup. I could have an extra battery around.
Andrew Sharp
If you stay ready, you don't have to get ready. You're ready for anything as you undertake this fishing expedition. I love to see it.
Ben Thompson
Yeah, no, yes, unfortunately, I have a lot of stuff that I want to get to. One of the problems is I have ideas of how to solve things, I acquire the components to solve it, and then they are never actually implemented or used.
Ben Thompson
Assembled.
Andrew Sharp
Well, no, they are, but I need a forcing function to get it done.
Ben Thompson
Okay.
Ben Thompson
So I have a bunch of networking gear because I have a few ideas of some things I want to do. Then something will happen and I haven't installed it yet, and then it's a flurry of a weekend of getting this all in and then it's done. But I had the supplies on hand, so it does get done eventually. I would say in general—
Andrew Sharp
Halfway there.
Ben Thompson
Yeah, organization—I love being organized. I love knowing where stuff is. I love being clean, and I hate organizing, I hate cleaning, and I hate picking up after myself. So there's a real tension about what I enjoy and what I'm capable of accomplishing, and that is why I don't like talking about how I hire people and have assistants. That's why you hire someone.
Andrew Sharp
There you go.
Ben Thompson
You don't fix your weaknesses; you make more money so you can pay for someone else to fix them.
Andrew Sharp
Well, I'm glad that Daniel picked up on the garage comment during the last episode, because what you were referring to there was not necessarily a messy garage at my house. But when I bought the house, the previous owner had converted half of a pretty small one-car garage into an exercise room and put up a wall halfway through the garage. So the garage I have doesn't actually fit a car and is full of storage. Maybe my garage project would be knocking down the extra wall and just recreating an actual garage for myself, but it's pretty small. It pales in comparison to your massive Midwestern garage. So it's probably not big enough to fit a modern SUV.
Ben Thompson
No, I realize this. It's that the coastal elites don't appreciate a good garage.
Ben Thompson
Super important.
Andrew Sharp
I'll tell you what: not having a garage has made me appreciate a good garage. I go out to Madison and I'm like, “Man, this is what I need.” I feel like you answered this question in part on Stratechery this week, so I wanted to use this as an on-ramp to the vibe-coding discussion. So tell people about your problem and your vibe-coding solution to the problem.
Ben Thompson
Well, so I put this one out. It's just super fun. There are a few people who took it way too seriously, like I make pronouncements about the future of AI.
And I was just like—there was a bit about, look, there's this delightful aspect of AI. Number 1, there's a bit where I don't think people fully appreciate how good this stuff is.
But then number 2, I feel a bit like a kid again, back in the '90s, putting computers together, acquiring different parts, trying to do different things, having all these delusions of grandeur about all these businesses I'm going to start—like helping people put up websites, and all the bits and pieces.
Andrew Sharp
And just loving the work. I love the piece on Wednesday because it was pretty whimsical, and you felt the joy throughout, having a great time with computers. That's the vibe-coding experience—
Ben Thompson
Right.
Andrew Sharp
—that I came away with.
Ben Thompson
Which is about organizing my garage. So the issue I have is I moved back and took 1 week off of work when moving back, but then I had shipments arriving at multiple times. I had 1 air shipment, and I had 1 that came by boat. I had a bunch of suitcases that we brought when we came back in June, then we went back in July to pack up and brought more stuff back then. Just a lot of stuff coming in.
I'm also still working full time, and I have a house with lots of good storage opportunities, but the problem is that the first storage run is super important because you have to figure out: This is the cord area. This is the fishing-stuff area. This is the car-stuff area. And so, in the future, when you need to find something, you know where it is.
Andrew Sharp
You know where to go.
Ben Thompson
It doesn't help to have stuff put away if you can't find it.
Andrew Sharp
Yeah.
Ben Thompson
The problem, though, is there was so much stuff. The reality I live in is that the house looks relatively neat and organized because all that stuff was put on shelves with no organization. It's just like, “Oh, people are coming over. We're hosting. Let's get all this stuff out of the garage. We need to park the cars.”
Andrew Sharp
It's actually great. Your basement is spectacular and looks really clean and organized. And then I stepped into your office last time I was in Madison, and I was like, “Whoa. There's a lot going on in here.”
That's a job that still needs to be done.
Ben Thompson
The problem is it's so messy because I don't want to put stuff away because I need to figure out where it needs to be put away first so that I can find it in the future. So you can see I'm in this doom loop, right? It's just a total mess.
Now, I mentioned I do have someone here who works with me, a friend from high school, and it's great. My wife is back and forth. She spends a lot of time in Taiwan and is part here. So primarily when I'm here by myself, sometimes he's just driving the kid to school or going to pick stuff up.
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
It's very beneficial, and he's the one who put all the stuff on the shelves in the first place because it was a panic: “Oh, we need to get this stuff out of here. Just do something with it.” Of course, the answer is to have him organize everything.
Andrew Sharp
Yeah.
Ben Thompson
But if you organize everything, I don't know where it is. So I need to be involved. The reality is, the answer is I need to not be involved. How can we get a situation where everything is organized and put away—
Andrew Sharp
Centralized resource—
Ben Thompson
—but I can—
Andrew Sharp
Sure.
Ben Thompson
—still find it? What I need is software. I need the ability to look something up and know where it is.
So there are lots of home-inventory products on the market, right? If you want to imagine having enterprise software for your house, that sounds horrible. There are a gazillion little forms with a checkbox because they're trying to cover everything.
This is the issue with software. What's the magic of it? You write software once, and then you can sell it to a gazillion people at zero marginal cost.
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
The problem is, to sell to a gazillion people, you have to cover—
Andrew Sharp
Serving a gazillion—
Ben Thompson
—a lot of use cases.
Andrew Sharp
Needs. Yeah.
Ben Thompson
Right? I think this is a point that Steven Sinofsky has made before. Everyone complains that Word has so many features. “I only need these 5 features.” Everyone feels this way. The problem is their 5 features are all totally different, and they cover the entire gamut of features.
The reason why there are so many things there—or AWS is the modern version of this. AWS is so complicated. There are so many services. Have you tried navigating their dashboard? It's unbelievable.
But everyone feels that way, and what they want is all totally different. That's also very profitable because you get scale on this. You sell it to a bunch of people. Everyone uses Word and complains about how cluttered it is, but it has the 1 feature they need, and then Microsoft makes a gazillion—
Andrew Sharp
So everyone uses Word—
Ben Thompson
—dollars along the way. Right? So yeah. It doesn't need to be this way.
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
What I want is software that will solve this problem, and I think the unique constraint is I don't have a large staff. I have 1 staff member. The brilliance of having someone that you pay is you can make them do stuff that normal people don't want to do. Who wants to go through—
Andrew Sharp
Yeah.
Ben Thompson
—and actually do all the cataloging, right, and do that sort of stuff? Well, if you're getting paid to do it, it's a lot more acceptable to get it done. And honestly, he's happy about it too because instead of us doing a scramble to find something every other day—
Andrew Sharp
This nonstop dialogue—
Ben Thompson
Yeah, where is—
Andrew Sharp
—with you.
Ben Thompson
That's right.
Andrew Sharp
It's clearly better for him.
Ben Thompson
That's right.
So this is a unique dynamic where I have a human to do a lot of this work, so I don't need a lot of complexity. What do I want? I want software that's perfectly tuned to someone like me and how I work and perfectly tuned to having an asset like this person to implement these pieces and make it super simple, super approachable, not having a single feature I don't need, only what's there.
This isn't an inventory system. These are important notes. I'll come back to this. It's not like a task-management system. It's a look-up-something-and-find-out-where-it-is system, and that's it. It's tuned to there being someone available and capable to do the grunt work, and the other person involved in this transaction doesn't want to do any work at all. He just wants to be able to—
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
—find stuff.
So because of this, the magic here is I can make software that's going to solve this problem, and I don't need permission to do it. I don't need to hire a developer. I don't need to try to bend stuff on the market to fit into my niche. I can build a perfectly fitting piece of software to this exact need, and that's awesome.
Andrew Sharp
And what you're doing is you're using QR codes, right, to categorize some of it?
Ben Thompson
Well, okay. The details of the system, I don't— You know. Basically, the idea is I'm defining the house by—
I have other properties here. My parents' place is right down the street. They've got their own place. I have some stuff stored there as well, of course. That's actually where the fishing stuff will go long term.
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
So I have the property, and then within the property, there are rooms. Within the rooms, there are structures like a shelf or a dresser or whatever. And within the structure, there's an actual storage spot, which is a single shelf or a single drawer or whatever.
Andrew Sharp
Okay.
Ben Thompson
And so the idea is he—my assistant—now owns storage. I'm not going to own the storage. Everything's going to be organized and put away, and I'm going to have zero input into it. He does what makes sense to him.
Andrew Sharp
So he decides—
Ben Thompson
That's right. He decides—
Andrew Sharp
—and records—
Ben Thompson
And—
Andrew Sharp
—and we're set.
Ben Thompson
And then after he's done, he's going to go through space by space, and this is where the AI is super awesome.
How do you catalog everything? Ninety-five percent of stuff, you take a picture of it and it gets it perfect.
Andrew Sharp
Mm-hmm.
Ben Thompson
And then there's the edge case where you need to make changes or whatever. There's a little bit of flow—
Andrew Sharp
Ah.
Ben Thompson
So you can check it.
Andrew Sharp
So you just take an iPhone photo and it just adds it automatically—
Ben Thompson
Yeah.
Andrew Sharp
—to the app?
Ben Thompson
Yeah, you just take a picture—
Andrew Sharp
Wow.
Ben Thompson
Yeah, and it fills in all the details.
Andrew Sharp
That's incredible.
Ben Thompson
Yeah, and so you organize everything. So where the QR codes come in is he doesn't necessarily do QR codes at the start, but later, say you have something new show up in the mail, right? And he's like, “This should go here.” So he gets the thing, takes a picture of it, puts it on a shelf, scans the QR code of that shelf, and boom, it's in the system, in that spot.
Andrew Sharp
Mm.
Ben Thompson
And then you can always find everything. So you search for something. I have right here a windshield washer concentrate with antifreeze. That is a specific kind of windshield washer concentrate for, of course, winter—
Andrew Sharp
Winter.
Ben Thompson
Yeah. You get a nicer car, you pay up in all sorts of ways. One of these is you have to buy special windshield wiper fluid.
Andrew Sharp
Okay, great.
Ben Thompson
Right? I have this next to my desk because this was a test object: taking pictures of it to see whether it already exists in the system or not. So I have it sitting around. But the idea is, yeah, if I need this, I can—
Andrew Sharp
I love that you're up late at night testing different objects for your new vibe-coded app. How long did it take you to build the app?
Ben Thompson
It takes longer than you think.