Apple's AI Stumble & China's Tech Surge

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I've been thinking a lot about why Apple isn't really a player in the AI space right now. Is it because Steve Jobs isn't around anymore, and you can feel it? What's going on there?

This is a museum piece. This is the Apple 1, the first computer Apple ever made. Two kids, Steve Jobs at 21 and Steve Wozniak at 25, built this in their garage.

And it was the product that gave birth to Apple.

Forget about it.

Do you think any brand could dethrone Apple, maybe something from China? Huawei could have done it, but Trump put a stop to that.
What scared or surprised you the most during your experience in China?

It relates to what I have here. This is a PC, a laptop. Which is better, Apple or this? That's a brutal question. In terms of components and power, I know this first keyboard...

You know what else has been a big adventure? Your physical transformation. We've heard so many diets and exercise routines on podcasts like ours. What have been the key habits for you?

For me, personally, the most important thing is commitment. Just give it priority. Make it important enough to take it seriously and dedicate the time and care it needs.

We're going to talk about technology, about artificial intelligence, about what's coming. We'll discuss China, how it's revolutionizing the world, and how much time Apple has left. I'm an Apple fanatic, I've got my Apple Watch, my iPad, but I'm worried because I don't see much innovation. But you and I, Sergio, we're not the experts.

No, we're not going to talk about that. We're going to bring in someone who we think knows the most about this topic, about how to adapt to this technological shift, and he's going to share some fascinating insights. So, Nate, welcome to the show.

Thanks a lot. I'm really happy to be here. And you've set this up beautifully.

We were terrified, Juanillo, thinking you wouldn't notice the flaws. It's like when... it's super pro, the cameras, everything's great.

If you had to improve one thing, just by looking at it, what would it be?

Honestly, not much. You could, as I mentioned earlier, record all the cameras from one computer instead of using separate cards, but other than that, it's impeccable. For those listening and not seeing, Nate has brought a few items to discuss later. One of them is the Apple Mac 1, or rather...

The Apple 1. The very first Apple computer in history.

The very first Apple computer. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built it. Jobs was 21, Wozniak 25. They decided, "Let's design a PC." Wozniak did most of the engineering. And this was the product from which Apple was born.

Apple will come up quite a bit in this conversation because they always give us something to talk about. And actually, with these cheaper products they're releasing, there's a lot we can discuss. But first, given the urgency of what's happening in the world and how everything is evolving, I think we should start by talking a bit about AI and then move on to China and other interesting topics.

Generally speaking about artificial intelligence, do you think there's a bit of hype around the topic?

Well, with AI, a lot of things are happening in the world simultaneously. There's clearly a bubble, but that doesn't mean... I'm quite sure there's an AI bubble, but that doesn't mean it won't be useful. For anyone to understand, technological revolutions like AI happen only every many years. The last one, you could say, might have been social media. Others that weren't as big, but still important, were things like the subscription revolution, where everything is a subscription: Spotify, Netflix, etc. Smartphones, the internet. There have been major revolutions, but they don't happen every year, and they don't happen constantly. So, AI is like the next big thing, but it's a huge thing, and every tech company knows that someone is going to take the lead in it. There will be one company, just like Google is with advertising and search engines, or Facebook was in its time with social media and advertising within social media.

So, if AI is next, let's see who gets the biggest piece of the pie. Amazon with e-commerce, Apple with hardware, well, AI is the next frontier. So, it's all about investing heavily and seeing who gets there first. By investing money, money, money. But that doesn't mean it's making money today. In fact, the cost for us to use AI is ridiculous compared to what it actually costs. Companies are losing money like crazy, but the ultimate goal is an arms race. Let's see who gets AI supremacy among the general public. And there's another thing. This has happened before, many years ago, in the 80s and 90s. The pioneers of technology were companies. The first to implement technologies were companies. You used a computer in your company because they provided it. Then, through the 2000s, 2010s, etc., something started happening: people began using services at home and bringing them to their companies. For example, Dropbox. People used Dropbox at home to share files. They'd get to work and say, "Hey, I need to send you a file." "Well, I use this." And it started being used in the office. The process reversed. Before, companies were at the forefront of technology, and slowly, users had the cutting-edge technology and brought it to the company.

Right.

So now we're in a model where people know the technology at home and bring it to the company, and then business plans emerge.

Right.

And the AI topic is a bit like this. If it reaches a lot of people, they realize its potential, they get used to using it, then it will reach companies, but implementation in companies is slower for many reasons. In a company, everything is slower. Things like data leaks, legal issues with data protection laws, sharing industrial secrets, whatever. For one reason or another, due to a series of policies, everything is slower. So, I think what they're trying to do is reach us, ordinary people, so we see the potential, get used to it, use it, and figure out which ones are the best. Then, they'll reach the corporate world too.

But Nate, where do you see the biggest bubble? In them telling us they're going to take our jobs, and you don't think they will take jobs, or where do you see the weak point that they'll never achieve?

In what they'll never achieve, who knows, because they're constantly achieving things that make you say, "What? I thought this was impossible, and suddenly, something does it."

Exactly. What I'm seeing, what bothers me quite a bit... I don't know everything, and I'm trying to learn as much as I can, but the big question everyone is asking is, what is this actually useful for? Okay, I can ask Gemini for restaurant recommendations in Andorra tonight, but I can also just search on Google. It's more conversational, but I can still search on Google. I heard you talking on the last podcast about how Claude could be integrated with Notion, and you could have an assistant that talks to you and answers anything about your company. That's good, it's a small extra step, but it's not revolutionary.

I mean, we're hearing about people buying Mac minis to run Claude, to have it make decisions on its own.

But are there real examples of this making money? That's the question. They seem more like YouTube videos, like challenges, like people doing a challenge to see what happens, not like a real application.

It's a toy.

Exactly. But there's no one who... or maybe there is, but I haven't seen anyone out there saying, "I'm using AI for A, B, C, and D, it's saving me X amount of money, it replaces this role."

It's controversial. I think it's controversial, and it's a competitive advantage that not everyone will want to share.

True. But you're using AI. I'm using AI. That's what I'm saying. My effort for the last six months to a year has been trying to understand if AI is revolutionary and how I can leverage it to make my business work better. Because it's clear that when such a revolutionary technology comes along, those who get left behind are the ones who don't adapt and can't take advantage of it. Any company that doesn't understand it and can't leverage it will fall behind. And there's a lot of hype, a lot of magic tricks. You see them and you think, "Wow, it's like a magic trick," but then you apply it to reality and you think, "This is impressive that a computer can do this, but I can't actually use it." Maybe it saves me an hour of work, but it doesn't replace a person, which is the mistake many entrepreneurs make. They also fall for the "shiny object syndrome," which is talked about a lot in business: you see something and think, "This is revolutionary, it changes everything, I'm going to bet everything on this." And then it's not quite like that. There are documented cases of companies that have fired departments to implement AI solutions and then had to hire people to supervise the AI.
And I'm working on understanding exactly how AI can help us, where it excels in each phase and in each of its forms. And what I'm seeing is that one of the most affected areas, where the most benefit can be gained, is software development, without a doubt. The software industry has changed overnight, practically, in quotes, and there's no going back. I'm absolutely clear about that.

That's the famous "Nate code," like developing code.

Ah, okay. Creating programs, apps, mobile apps, websites, anything related to software. Software is what makes everything function. AI is excellent at making software. Even better, in the pre-AI era, you had to learn to think like a machine and speak its language with a certain structure and approach to make it work. And in my opinion, because my background is in software development and engineering, it took years to become a good software engineer, to learn that way of thinking, that way of structuring, that way of planning projects to create software. And now you have an AI that can do many things for you, very many. It's a completely different ballgame.

Juan, with all this Nate is saying, I'm really looking forward to something I've already signed up for this summer plan. You know what it is? Going to the pool?

No, not the pool, Juan. It's something I've been putting off for a long time, and I know many people who watch "Tengo un Plan" feel the same way: learning about artificial intelligence once and for all.

Ah, right. I actually did that some time ago, I trained with the best because it's quite important to do it right.

Yes. How did you do it? Maybe it's the same one I'm thinking of.

I invited you, but you never sign up for the free bootcamps. I signed up for Learning Hill.

Ah, okay, yes, yes. I signed up for that too. Yes, yes. We have free training with Javier that we recorded for "Tengo un Plan" because artificial intelligence right now, if you're not using it for your business or your life, no matter what job you have, whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur, you can significantly increase your productivity, earn more money, and most importantly, you'll be left behind if you don't learn about artificial intelligence.

June 29th to July 2nd, four consecutive days of intensive training with Javier López and his team from Learning Heroes on artificial intelligence, completely free. And as I said, Javier López is a reference in the world of AI. If you don't believe me, check out the interview we did with him to learn his story, and you can also watch the entire free training. We did a whole course on artificial intelligence on this channel with him, and he's a reference because he explains complex things very simply. As Juan said, earn more money, save more time, and gain more labor value by learning what you need to learn right now, which is artificial intelligence. So, we'll leave the link in the description, and let's continue with this episode.

So, there's so much talk about companies saying their programmers aren't touching a line of code anymore. Programmers haven't touched a line of code in months; they just supervise and delete what the AI does, modify it, remove it.

Right, they still need the logical part, don't they? The part where they know how to build software and all that, but the actual coding is no longer necessary.

Exactly. Typing it out yourself is no longer necessary.

It depends on the case. And then there are companies... what I've been dedicating myself to for the past few months is first testing it myself. I sat down and said, "As a software developer, how do I see this?" Because I hear a lot of things, I know it's affecting things the most, but I want to see it. I've seen a number of things. I've seen that it's revolutionary, I've seen that it's not perfect, I've seen that it's not yet "mainstream," but it's advancing very quickly, and I see it one way. But how are the big companies doing it? And at the beginning of the year, I went to Meta, I went to Google, I went to various Silicon Valley companies. I've been talking to developers and asking them. Some didn't want to speak on camera, I'll tell you, because they're not allowed to. But I sat down with them and said, "Look, guys, what are you doing with AI? Are you using AI? Are you programming? What's the policy in your company?" And I've also done it with Spanish and European companies, and I'm finding that there are cases where AI has been welcomed and is encouraged by the company itself. Like, "Guys, whoever doesn't use AI will have a conversation with HR."

Right.

Yes, yes, "We'll give you an account and monitor usage to see how much you use it, and you really have to use it." And I've had employees from companies tell me, "Dude, my bosses are giving me an account and want to know if... I have to find a use for this, but I don't really know how to use it. Can you help me?" This has happened with several friends in the industry. And there are companies that have that vision. There are companies where the employees themselves are pushing for it: "Hey, these tools exist, let's use them. Everyone brings from home what they use at home." And then there are companies where it's frowned upon, and the policy is zero AI or minimal, and many employees or team leads are fighting to change that.

So, there are the three different approaches, right? But in Silicon Valley, in the most cutting-edge companies, the philosophy is: "We give you AI, we give you all the resources, and let each programmer do whatever they want with it, use it, but there are no specific guidelines," which is another thing that surprised me. I asked Google employees, "Have you been trained on how to use AI in software development and programming?" "No, they've given us an account and said, 'Here, do whatever you want with this, try it out, see what fits.'" So, it's all very much in its infancy.

But what's clear is that AI is a tool that for programmers and for creating software applications of any kind, websites, servers, everything, is being used and is revolutionary. That can't be denied. Now, what's the best way to use it? That's something that's still being defined. Everyone has their own style, every company has its own style. And the big crisis, the big question I ask myself is, we who come from the pre-AI era, who know... have you seen the movie The Matrix, the first one?

Yes.

Do you know that in Matrix, they reach a city in the center of the earth and there are machines that no one knows how they work? There are machines that function on their own, like police officers, they roam around. There are machines that purify water, air, I don't know what, for the whole city. And there's a moment where they say, "These machines have been working for decades or centuries, and no one knows how they work." If they break down, we're dead.

Right.

Well, I see that happening because, you know, if I, as a software engineer, have spent 10 years typing code without AI and I understand the applications and look at code and know what the AI is doing and how the software architecture works, a new kid starting now won't have that... won't get that experience that I got over... imagine, 80 years.

Right. That's the question I have, and the one I ask everyone in the industry: "Hey, what do we teach a kid who's starting?"

That's a good question. I think this isn't necessary. This isn't either. This isn't either.

Yeah, but what about the day they have to get into... it won't be necessary. It might not be necessary. Maybe there will be ultra-specialized roles for that, and others who understand nothing. So, there's a moment where it will be like knowing an ancient language.

An ancient language. Yes. There's a programmer who said, very famously, the creator of Ruby on Rails, of a web development framework, something about programming, right? Object X. He said programming will be like riding a horse. People ride horses today because they enjoy it as a hobby, but it's not necessary for anything. You have cars, you have everything. So, anyone who wants to program traditionally, by typing code, it will be like someone who goes for a horseback ride. For a hobby, simply.

I think that's a good analogy, because it makes perfect sense.

Yes, yes. And I'd like to ask you, currently in April 2026, of the AIs you're seeing out there, what's your top three, top five ranking? If you had to rank them in a tier list, what would that order be, based on what each one is offering right now?

Well, according to what the experts say, there's something called benchmarks, performance tests. They do these tests, they give them problems to solve, and they rank them. That's one thing, and then daily utility is another. It's not always that exact. But it gives you an idea of which is the best and which is the worst. But if I had to tell you the ones that are useful to me and that I consider the best, I use Claude and Gemini. Those are top one and top two, or one and two. They're different.

They're different. Let me explain. Gemini is excellent at programming, really excellent. It's a brutal software architect. It has a utility called Cloud Code, which is a program you install on your PC, and it starts doing whatever you tell it to. It sets up whatever you ask for. The other day, I was out of the office, I had a computer turned off, I asked someone to turn it on, and I said, "I don't even remember the address to connect to it, and I can't find it. It's one I use for recording." And it started scanning IPs and looking at ports. It can do that, but I was also amazed.

How many computers do you have?

No, a lot. A lot. And after a moment, it told me, "It has to be this one, number 14."

Yes, it is, because... I don't remember why, but it gave me an explanation. It had to be this one, and I thought, "No way." But the explanation it gave was like... I don't remember now, but it was crazy. And it was right. It said, "This one has Linux installed." "That one, I don't think so." "This one has... something." "This one fits with the NAS because this MAC address matches the manufacturer that makes these boards." "I see, and you mentioned this PC you have, it must be like a gaming PC you built yourself. I see this board is made by Asus, so the MAC address matches the one made by Asus, so it must be this PC." And I was like, "Okay, cool."

That function, Nate, what's it called? The famous Copilot that works with you, or is that something else entirely?

That's it. So, Claude... look, there's a thing that's quite interesting. Everyone knows the traditional AI chat, right? The chat where you open ChatGPT or whatever and start talking. You write a message, it thinks, and it responds.

It's passive, right? You talk to it, and it gives you something back.

Yes, this is also passive. The idea is, it's like a brain. You can imagine it as a machine with an input hole and an output hole. It processes. So, you put in an input, which is your text. It does magical things inside, and it outputs another text. That's how it works. So, when you browse the web, you write, you hit enter, you send the message, it does what it needs to do, spits it out, and gives it back to you. Sometimes it uses tools and things, but that's the basic functionality. And then there are agents. What is an agent? What's the difference between my interpretation, and maybe an expert will tell me I'm wrong, but the difference between an agent and this, which is like one shot, one shot and it gives you something back. An agent is something to which I give the ability to use tools, like, for example, executing commands on my PC, opening my email and looking at things, connecting to a server and clicking a button, connecting to DaVinci Resolve and cutting a piece of video. Almost like a human, right?

Yes, I give it abilities. And what it does is, I send it a message, I tell it the skills it has, and it says, "Okay, I'm going to use the calling command." And it doesn't talk to me; it talks to my PC and says, "I want to call this command." So, it executes a command, the PC gives it back the result. And it says, "Okay, based on what I see from this command, I'm going to execute this other one." It gives me another command. I don't understand anything. I'm just a spectator, and I see it talking to my PC.

This with Claude's Copilot, right?

That's called Cloud Code. This is an agent. So, I talk to it, and it starts ping-ponging with my PC. It doesn't talk to me; it starts talking to the PC, pa pa. It executes things, uses tools. It's like it has hands, you know? Before, it was like, "You talk to me, I'm a bust, you talk to me, I respond." Now it's like, "You talk to me, and I say, 'Wait, let me check.'"

Okay.

Okay. Uh-huh. Interesting. I'll do this here, and once I've reached a conclusion, I'll tell you. And I've executed things on your computer and done things for you. That's the difference between an agent and a... well, a normal LM, its normal operation.

And then you mentioned Gemini. What do you use Gemini for?

Gemini, I use it because there's...

A psychologist? Gemini?

No, no, no, no. Look, I used to use ChatGPT for research and for analyzing things, but honestly, ChatGPT, I've tried others. I've tried Claude, it's fallen off a cliff, ChatGPT, man. I've tried Claude and seen that the results are better. I've tried Gemini, and the results are also quite good, and the fact that it has integrated Google search works very well. And then I started using the APIs, which you also talked about on the last podcast. Basically, it's like talking to Gemini, but in the background, not through the web, but I have a program that talks to Gemini in the background, and it answers me. This costs money; it's no longer free. I have to pay a subscription. So, I might have some internal program for my company. I'll give you an example. I have a program I made to track all my expenses, categorize them, and know where my money is going.

That's cool. That's a really good idea.

It's cool. So, what I did was, with Cloud Code, I fed it all my bank statements from when I opened the company until now. From all the banks. Well, not that much data. I passed all the bank statements. All millions and millions. Well, I passed everything.

But you were asked to differentiate Cloud Code. Are you talking about Claude, or is it...

Ah, okay, okay, okay. It's Cloud Code.

Okay, okay, okay. Perfect. Like cloud code.

I install it on my PC, and you talk to it through the terminal. The terminal is like MS-DOS, you know? That little window. Or you talk to it through there. So, you talk to it there, and you tell it, "I have a file in downloads that contains all the bank statements. Grab them, and I want you to set up a database where you'll store all the expenses, indexed, blah blah blah." I tell it exactly what I want it to do. And then I want a webpage that acts as an interface where I can see the entire list of expenses.

Incredible.

Right. I tell it to start with that. And that's something I have in Holded, which isn't amazing, right? But it's cool that it does that. But it's cool to check that it does the same thing.

Yes, yes, yes.

And then I tell it, "Okay, I want you to look at the expenses, and I'm going to give you access to four things. Six things: Holded, so you can get invoices through the API. I'll give you access to three email accounts I have where it says 'purchase,' 'something.' I'll give you access to my entire Amazon purchase history and access to my calendar so you know about my trips, everything I've done, hotel reservations, places, I have them all there."

What a crazy thing to do!

So, I need you to categorize all my expenses into the following categories: travel, and you need to tell me the destination, where I went, and the hotel, everything. And I want you to group expenses, like, for the Las Vegas trip, all the tickets and all the expenses. I want you to categorize expenses based on projects I did. You have access to my email, so since you have access to all of this, and I ask Cloud Code this with 10,000 expense entries, and it tells me, "Hey, dude, no, I'm going to make you a small program that looks at them, and that's it. If I want an AI to really look at it, I have to use an AI API." So, what I did was... I told it, "Let's make a program that takes 15 expenses at a time, 15 expenses at a time." You pass it to Gemini with all this prompt, which tells it the categorizations, the tools it has, how to research. So, first, research in Holded. If there's no invoice and no data, go to my email, look for an email related to this expense. If it's an expense that seems to be outside of Barcelona based on the business name or something, go to my calendar and see if I had a trip at that time. I explain to it the steps to follow.

I see. Yes, yes, with more detail. Otherwise, it starts to fail.

Exactly, right. And then I tell it, "Go ahead." And it starts. It took 4 or 5 hours. The computer has to be on, right? Yes, I went to sleep, left it running for 4 or 5 hours, and came back in the morning, and I had the pie chart, expenses in personnel, something, this, that, and the other. A tab with trips, all the travel history I've had since I created the company until now, with all the linked expenses. And I go into a trip, I click on it, and it says, "This hotel is Hotel X in Las Vegas, and it matches the dates of this trip, so you slept there on this day." "This expense, I see you have an eBay ticket, you bought this, which seems to be this, you bought it to decorate the office, and yes."

But it developed an application from scratch for you, right?

But I did that in an afternoon. I did that. It's crazy. It's a personalized application for you.

Yes. I left the office at 7, went home, grabbed my laptop, and did it. No, I came back from a flight from somewhere, I don't remember where, and on the plane, I did it at night.

But where did I go?

Would you trust artificial intelligence, for example, to say, "With this information, I want you to be my financial advisor and recommend where I should invest?"

Right, because that's venturing into territory where I'm going to trust AI with my money. Or if you did the same thing with your health: "These are my habits, my metrics, my analytics, what should I do?" Ultimately, that's like the next step towards artificial general intelligence. You can ask for advice, and it's quite good because there's one thing... speaking of all this, right? The pattern I see is if I had more time or could outsource something I don't control as well, and I hired a person, not the best, just someone who provides that service, then for those types of tasks, AI is useful. For example, if I had a lot of time, I'd know how to program that application I just told you about, and I could also review all my expenses and categorize them. It's something that's quite mechanical, and a secretary could do it by looking through my email and finding data, looking at my... anyone can do it. I explain to them, "You need to do A, B, C, D, F, G," and anyone can do it. For those tasks, the idea is quite good. Or tasks that I would know how to do and could guide and correct errors, or even imagine the correct process in my mind. Right, for those tasks, it's quite good. That's why they say AI enhances people who are good or knowledgeable about a topic, and diminishes those who don't know as much. Because for those who don't know as much, they'll trust it, they'll have the false illusion of being productive, and they'll start doing a lot of things that might not be right or useful at all. And for those who know, there are things in programming, for instance, where you get stuck thinking about a program, a solution, and you say, "Okay, this way, this way, this way, this way." For example, what I did when planning that expense program was a software solution to solve a problem: a database, something, then, okay. I thought of it, I could execute it, but I present it to the AI, and it does the work of typing all the code for me, all that tedious work. It would be like I'm the architect, and AI is the builder. I give it the blueprints, and it builds the house. But there are two very good things it does: one is it can advise me as an architect, and it can build. So, it's good at both. It might not be as good at lateral thinking, not as good at solving certain types of problems if you give it free rein and you have no idea what it's doing. But it's good because it's like Google. For example, before starting a software project, a YouTube project, I would search on Google and find forums where experts discuss topics. All that knowledge is within AI. So, I can ask Gemini and say, "Hey, I want a new camera and a card to record with that camera." I asked Gemini, and it told me, "This camera with this card and this..." And I said, "Yeah, but in this case, this case, and this case, right? Then this and this and this. And where do you get that from?" And it passes me four forums.

Right.

And it has that knowledge. And then that's one part. And the same with execution. I tell it, "Program all of this for me, here are the plans, and it executes it." So, it knows a lot and it knows how to execute, but in between, there's a gap, which is the human part. That's what I see. I don't know if you guys have also experimented with AI and encountered this problem.

Yes, yes, yes. And something that worries me more is that sometimes I feel dependent because I've used it so much that I don't feel confident on my own to make a decision because I have the fallback of saying, "Well, better ask her." It seems trivial at first, but then, I don't know, to prepare questions for a podcast... we've been doing interviews for 3 years before AI. But now I feel insecure saying, "Maybe it's better to ask it and see what it says." So, what I'm afraid of is that it will make us dependent on thinking, you know? Or rather, dependent on not thinking, and letting it think for us, and that we'll become dumber and dumber, so to speak.

That's going to be a problem. I think, I was thinking recently, many years ago, our grandparents didn't go to the gym. They walked, lifted things, did physical work, and didn't need to go to the gym. Nowadays, with our sedentary lives, public transport, cars, elevators, we do nothing. If you don't even have to move a finger, life is super easy. So, we go to the gym to compensate for that, to stay healthy. Maybe something similar will happen. You don't need to think as much, your brain atrophies, and you need brain workouts, or something like that. I think something like that will happen.

That's very possible, yes. We might need a "brain gym" at some point.

Hey, one question, man. Have you been to China? And is there an AI there called Deepsic?

No.

Have you tried it? Yes, I have tried it. What's the difference, or how is it? Deepsic is very good, honestly. It's not at the level of Gemini or Claude. For me, ChatGPT is similar, and it has some really cool uses, for example, it's much cheaper. One very good thing is that it's much cheaper than all the other APIs. I'm not talking about monthly subscriptions; I'm talking about when you want to connect your company or your app or whatever you want, you need an AI provider. AI models are like intelligent brains. So, if you want something... when you see a fitness app with AI, it doesn't mean the fitness app developers created an AI. They've used an AI provider, which is an intelligent brain. For example, they've used ChatGPT and connected ChatGPT to their fitness app. You don't see ChatGPT, but you see an intelligent analysis. What are they doing in the background? They connect ChatGPT to their app, and they pay ChatGPT for each message.

Ah. So, it can get expensive, right?

Yes, it can get very expensive. They pay per message, and it's like their intelligence provider. And I use Gemini like an external brain. I send it a request: "Do this task with this data," and it returns the data, and then my app formats it nicely. But I use it as an external brain for hire.

A hired brain.

Right. And that's part of the business of these companies: they're hired brains. So, Yamir is very good. Yamina, no, sorry, Deepsic is very good for this, and another thing it's very good at, I've seen, is translating things. Since it's very cheap, I have friends who have a news website in Spanish or something, and they're translating all their content with Deepsic and getting better results than with ChatGPT and others. And it works very well for them, and it's very cheap.

Yes, but that's where that human element you mentioned earlier comes in, because we, for example, did an experiment translating this podcast into Italian and Portuguese, right?

No, no. Yes, exactly. Yes, yes. I was going to say Brazilian, but yes, Portuguese. Italian and Portuguese. And it didn't work out. And I notice it in my own behavior too. I don't listen to things translated by AI because it lacks that human connection. And jokes, for example, a Spanish joke isn't the same as an American joke.

Exactly. That's another topic, the topic of AI-generated content. What do you guys think?

Wow, man, AI-generated content... there are two sides to it. The translated part, where AI was used for translation, we've seen friends here in Andorra who have translated their videos into Vietnamese, and it's worked very well for them. It's worked very well. Yes, yes. Channels in Korean, Indian, many very unusual countries, and it's worked. But these channels are more like "Beast Beast" content. So, what happens? Viral content is the idea, not the culture within the idea. When it comes to podcasts, what we experienced is that "Tengo un Plan" works because it's in Spanish, and it's for people in Spain, and we have that culture, and the way we ask questions or our curiosity is very much from here. Yes, you speak like an American, and you have a more direct, ambitious, maybe more materialistic way of being, or more about using everything around you to propel yourself to be better. I don't know, I'm quickly judging, but you get my point. Culture, I think, is quite important in this content creation. When it comes to generating content from scratch, I think it depends on the type of content we're talking about. For example, if it's content you need to create for a landing page, for your marketing strategy, generating content with AI, like, "Here's the data, make a nice graph with a generated image," I think it will add value because it will make the page look better, convert better. But using AI as a tool to create your viral content that will build your personal brand or your viral business strategy is a failure because...

Because AI isn't human, so AI doesn't have creativity.

But haven't you seen the fruit show on TikTok?

No, no.

Well, they've created like a novel with fruit characters. And it's gone super viral, millions and millions of views.

Ah, okay. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I've seen it. Okay, okay, okay.

Right, but that's 100% AI-generated content. The story, the images, everything. It's true that it's going to get better, but imagine in the finance sector. You wouldn't expect a fruit to talk about finance, right? You'd expect a person or something like that.

Well, but there might come a time when they generate an AI person whose knowledge is very good, and the day is very good.

And don't you think humans value what took someone else time to make? I mean, look at documentaries, or when you do an experiment that took you 35 days, the perceived effort from the viewer is valued. But when you find out it was made by AI, you think, "Wow, this wasn't made in a moment."

Hold on, that's a good point. The Coca-Cola ad... have you seen the new Apple TV intro?

No, man.

And have you seen the Coca-Cola ad made with AI?

No. Okay, it's great. Coca-Cola makes a Christmas ad every year with the bears, the truck, the reindeer. There's a song, I sang it with my dad when I was little. "I want to give a message of peace to the whole world." That's Coca-Cola. Well, there was no singing in it. The latest ad was 100% AI. It's very well done. You can tell it's AI and little things, but some people found it cool because it's like, "Wow, look what AI can do." But I think most people's opinion was, "Man, the jobs!" You know, this was done by artists, it had a purpose behind it, there was art, dedication, care, and now you've taken an AI, taught it all your ads, and it's made a slightly different one.

But I'll tell you something else, I think people... we have friends who make these Reels that are, for example, like what Alberto does, with Naruto, things that are very elaborate and take many hours.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Right. People don't know that. Some people are using AI to create content and are spending many more hours than they would if they were filming it themselves.

You can tell. The Coca-Cola thing wasn't like that. I think it was.

The Coca-Cola ad was like a cheap imitation of Coca-Cola's classic ads. It was exactly the same. If you see it, it's like, "Okay, a Coca-Cola ad, the average of these 3D Coca-Cola ads, but made with AI." The idea the executives or whoever had was probably, "The viral discourse is AI, let's make an AI ad, it'll be really well done, people will talk about it." And they did talk about it a lot, but very negatively, because it lacks that human element. It conveys a sense of low effort, opportunism, lack of care, lack of dedication. Meanwhile, Apple, at the same time, for the end of the year, did the new Apple TV intro.

Apple TV. You turn it on, and you get that typical jingle like Netflix, the Chuchun, the Apple one, right? They took the Apple logo, made it out of methacrylate, cut it, did this and that, assembled it on a series of moving and rotating surfaces with light effects, and put a cinema camera in front of it and recorded it. Then they edited it, and you see the final result. I saw that result, and if you told me it was done with AI or special software, I'd believe you. But when they upload the making-of, you say, "Wow, how do they come up with that? How cool is that? How does Apple come up with that?"

It's a better result. I'd say the Coca-Cola one might even have taken longer and been more elaborate, but it's the narrative. Everything that we humans value is for the story behind it, for the emotional value. And it's the same with products. A typical watch, you know, a watch from a millionaire that you know nothing about, and they start telling you, "The hands were made, I don't know where they put them by hand," as if they value the effort of other people, or we value it greatly. The story behind it, the story of objects. And in the world of physical products, or even in general, in the world of marketing, stories and narratives are the most important thing there is.

And I've realized that because my channel is partly about that, about telling product stories. I always try to explain to people why a product exists, where it comes from, in what context it was born. It's like the story of a person, that's how I approach it.

Absolutely. At the end of the day, it's all a competition, if you think about it, right? It's a competition for attention, or for something else. But in terms of how businesses work, it's all about who tells the best story to sell their product. And Apple has historically won that battle. What we're not seeing is how they're addressing artificial intelligence.

This is a question we wanted to ask you: Why isn't Apple in AI? I mean, where is Apple? Is it because Steve Jobs is no longer there and it shows? What's happening there?

I've been thinking about this for a long time, a lot, a lot of time. Apple is doing much better than we think. They're doing very well. And, well, Apple, in the world of Apple, is a hardware company, to start with. It's a device company. It always has been. A few years ago, they made a transition to digital services, as I said. There was a time when everything became trendy: Netflix, Spotify, iCloud, well, Google Drive, etc., and Apple launched all its digital services. They have their ecosystem where you have cloud storage for photos and files, Apple TV for movies, Apple Music instead of Spotify. They have their entire ecosystem of services, and I don't remember now, because I researched it for a video, what percentage of revenue this represents, but it's significant, it's not that small. A part of Apple's revenue comes from these services, but they remain a hardware company. And in the world of hardware, of computers, they've been brilliant for years. If you want, I can tell you why.

Yes, tell us.

And they've made a huge statement recently, a brutal one. Just two weeks ago.

So, the idea that Steve Jobs marked the beginning of Apple's decline, not at all, right?

Steve Jobs or Tim Cook. Ah, Tim Cook. No, no, Steve Jobs' death marked the beginning of the decline. Yes, but I didn't say death. Steve Jobs' death marked the beginning of the decline. Yes, there's a lot of talk that they've stopped innovating, that the iPhone is the same as the previous one. What happens is, if we look at Steve's history... After thinking about it a lot, I realized that Apple has moved on to a new phase, like a person's life. They've had a very innovative period where it was necessary, where they stood out above everyone else by being very innovative and taking very risky and innovative steps. And now they're in a more mature stage where they're very careful with the products they release and only bring things out when they're very polished, and they're not leading the way.

Right.

I'll give you an example: foldable phones. Apple hasn't released any. Rumor has it they'll release one this year.

Seriously? After...

After... but they haven't been that successful, right? Like with Samsung, for example. I don't get it either. I don't get it either. They want to release one, but it's quite reliably said they will. I don't quite see it myself, but anyway. Also, there's a new strategy in companies regarding products, which I'll tell you about if you want.

Yes.

I think they're in a phase of releasing good products that serve real purposes, rather than making noise by releasing innovative things. Do you understand what I mean?

It's not about being flashy. I mean, there was a time when... Steve, from the beginning, in fact, I'll talk about this now, okay?

Dale, dale. Put everything you have in your head, let it out.

The line is a bit blurry, huh? We just need popcorn, but okay, okay, okay. Yes, that's it. You asked me to bring things. You asked me to bring objects for daily productivity. I brought whatever I wanted, okay? I'm telling you now.

Daily productivity. I have a museum piece. This is a museum piece. This is the Apple 1. This is Apple's first computer ever. It was the company's first product. Two kids, Steve Jobs, who was 21, and Steve Wozniak, who was 25, built this in Silicon Valley in the 70s.

Silicon Valley. Right. I was there recently. I've been there in person, talking to a lot of people, visiting a lot of places, trying to understand why it's such an important place, as a location. And well, it has a heavy history of startups and tech companies. It all started a bit with Stanford University, and one professor in particular encouraged his students to start companies. In fact, one of the first companies, the one that created Silicon Valley, so to speak, was HP, Hewlett-Packard. It was two guys, Hewlett and Packard, who rented a house and started working in it. I even have it recorded, I'll release a video about the history of Silicon Valley and all that. And in a garage, they started making a product. Their first client was Disney. And from there, it evolved to where we are today. And in the 70s, it was a very fertile ground where chips were manufactured, where there were many tech experts, where there was a lot of manufacturing, a lot of industry, and young people could, with ingenuity, knowledge, and talent, create something like this in their homes. This board, they created it. This is a personal computer, a product that made no sense and didn't exist at the time. Computers were for businesses. Computers were a business product. In a company, it made sense for calculations, data storage, that type of thing. But for home, who wanted a computer at home? What for? It didn't make sense, right? And they created this because they were big geeks, especially Wozniak, who was the engineering genius behind it. By the way, the board is signed by him. You can see his signature here.
Steve Wozniak, right? That's his name.

Yes, Steve Wozniak. Oh, how cool that you'll raffle it among the followers of "Tengo un Plan." Thanks a lot.

Forget it, forget it. You're so kind, man.

So, these minds created this. At that time, Wozniak worked for, I think he worked for HP, if I remember correctly, or another company, I don't remember which one.

Because Wozniak has always been like the shadow, right? But he's been there as a co-founder, the guy. He deserves the same merit, really.

Well, in fact, he's the one who developed more, who has more, you know? But that's not really how it is if you think about it, because if he had kept it to himself, he actually took it to his company, I don't remember which company it was. It was probably HP or one of those. He took the computer, which was a wooden box, and needed a monitor on top to see things, but it was inside a super shabby wooden box. And he took it and they told him at the company that because he was obligated by contract to present all his inventions to his company. And he presented this, he presented it several times, and they told him to take it home, that it was a toy, that who wants a computer at home? This device doesn't make sense. Who's going to want this? No. And Steve Jobs kept insisting, "Man, this has a lot of potential, let's release it, and so on." They started presenting it at universities, they partnered with small electronics stores for fans, and it started gaining traction until they eventually created the Apple 2. The Apple 2 was the most successful computer in Apple's history. It took them to the stratosphere. It was a very important computer in the 70s and 80s for universities. All the unis had it for learning. It was a very, very important product. Not everyone had it at home yet, but in schools, universities, among geeks, people who liked computers, everyone had an Apple 2 back then in the United States.

A question, and Steve Jobs, was he more the salesman, the visionary profile?

Yes, exactly. He was the one who believed in this idea and pushed for it to come out, to talk to the right people, put it on the market, sell it, take it to fairs, explain the idea. And the thing is, he was 21 years old. When they founded the company and the Apple 2 came out, they started making a lot of money. Steve was a very young kid, not a CEO at 40, you know? And you know what happens: you make some crazy mistakes. He spoke very badly to employees, there are a lot of stories about him being super despotic, having a bad temper, saying inappropriate things, being way too full of himself, and being obsessed with making products. He thought he was a visionary and was obsessed with making super top products that weren't profitable. And for a long time, until they fired him, they fired Steve Jobs. Yes, they fired him from Apple. He was working on projects that burned through money, burned a lot of money, were very expensive, didn't do well in the market, surviving on the Apple 2. The Apple 2 was so successful that it allowed Steve to make a thousand mistakes within Apple. Now, all those mistakes weren't entirely mistakes. Today, they are remembered as masterpieces, like the Macintosh, computers that were very innovative for their time, but too advanced, too expensive. The Macintosh, for example, and I think it was the Lisa before it, were computers that were the first to have a graphical interface, which he also copied from others, but still, the first commercially sold mouse. But at the time, nobody saw the value in it. Years later, it was seen as very innovative, but at that time, it was a product that sold very poorly. And Steve, they kicked Steve out of Apple. Yes, they invited him to leave Apple because they hired a CEO, they hired the CEO of Pepsi, brought him to Apple, thinking the Pepsi guy would be a better director or a good director for Apple. This guy realized that Steve, he applied common sense and said, "This guy is spending a lot of money on weird R&D projects that aren't making money." And they started having problems because he said Steve was limiting his wings, that he wasn't an artist, that he didn't believe in innovation, that he was an artist, and so on. "Man, you're going to sink the company." You might recognize this from your own lives or companies you've worked for. It's not that far-fetched. But he was obsessed with this idea of making these products until they invited him to leave, they fired him from the company, and he, well, he stayed on the board, but he left and started... everything he couldn't do within Apple, he went and started a company and did it, which is NeXT, a computer company for everything Steve Jobs, the great visionary of Silicon Valley, said, "I'm going to do it." And he created a very expensive computer, a perfect black cube that was super complicated to make. He set up a production line based on this Japanese principle, I don't remember which one, I think it's Kaizen. He dismantled all the machines to paint them. He made the factory super white, nuclear white, super perfect. He spent a fortune on headquarters.

But I think you're talking about an Apple Store, right? That big staircase.

All of that became the Apple Store. All of that became what Apple is today. He hired a lot of developers to develop an operating system from scratch, super elaborate, which later became macOS. So, he did a lot of things that were very intricate, very expensive, and very complicated, which he believed were brilliant, and... well, NeXT never took off. It sold, but very poorly. And there came a point where his best move was for Apple to buy the company. And he ended up selling his company to Apple because Apple didn't have... while Steve wasn't there, Apple had abandoned innovation and started optimizing. They were selling the usual computers, a slightly improved model, selling expansion packs, peripherals, printers, things like that. And then competition started appearing, and Apple was falling behind. And then operating systems with windows started appearing, Windows, a lot of things, and Apple was falling behind. They didn't have an operating system, and they were looking to buy one from someone, because they were so late, they thought, "We have to buy it from someone." And Steve, who had founded this entire company with an operating system, custom hardware, a cube PC where nothing fit, had to design everything custom because he said the cube had to be... you know, aesthetics mattered a lot to him. It was a perfect geometric cube, where everything had to be adapted to fit. There's a story, I don't know if it's true, you'll know better. When they were designing an iPhone, he was obsessed with it being super thin. The designers gave him the first prototype, he looked at it and said, "There's wasted space here." He took a fish tank, put the iPhone in the fish tank, and bubbles started coming out. Meaning there's wasted space. He said, "See? Wasted space."

I think that's true. I think it's true.

What madness, my god. But he had that profile, right? Of believing too much in his ideas. He hadn't had enough setbacks yet, you know? It's something that happens a lot with people who are very successful. Mark Manson said this. You know Mark Manson? Right. Well, Mark Manson has a very good video, a brutal YouTube channel.

Yes, yes, he's a brutal author, we follow him quite a bit.

And he has a video where he talks about contrary ideas. He says that successful people talk a lot about waking up at 6 AM, eating something, going to the gym, but successful people actually have ideas that go against everyone else. They go against... they have ideas like, "If everyone says this is good, then I think it's not." I think the path is B. And what successful people have is that they have a contrary idea that turns out to be right, they go for it, and they succeed. And Steve had that. He had a contrary idea that home PCs, computers, made sense. He fought for that contrary idea, and it paid off. But from then on, he had a lot of contrary ideas, many of them were bad, because for some reason they were contrary. So, he had a lot of bad ideas with his company. In parallel, during this NeXT period, he also invested in Pixar and revived Pixar. Pixar was also initially a computer company. Then they ditched the computers and made Toy Story. The Apple book also talks about how they tried to get Steve to spend as little time as possible in the office because he was unbearable and to let them work. One of the coolest books I've seen is by the co-founder of Pixar, called Creativity.

Brutal. That book is brutal. Yes, yes, yes.

So, at this point, here's my question: Does this new phase of Apple, the more mature phase, make sense or not? I'll be quick, I'll be right there. Okay, continue, don't worry. When Steve returned, Steve returned because he bought his company and quickly became CEO. He fired the entire board of directors and started a new era at Apple where he took a huge risk with NeXT and other ideas he had.

They still had Macs then, right?

Only Macs. Okay, okay. Yes, yes. Exactly. He took a huge risk outside of Apple. Arrived at Apple and said, "Okay, that hurt, I'll calm down a bit." But he continued with his philosophy, but with a bit more sense. And that's when the iPod, iPhone, all that came along. That's the era where he revolutionized several industries. They never invent anything from scratch; what they do is create products that truly serve people. The iPhone already existed, smartphones existed. There were BlackBerries, there were tablets, there were PDAs, there were many things. It's not that revolutionary, but they managed to create a product that turned out to be very useful and had mass adoption. That's the difference. That's what Apple does. They usually take a technology when it's already somewhat mature and can actually be implemented in a product that can be massive, right? And that, I think, was a bit of Steve Jobs' skill. Because many people question him as a director, as a CEO, even as a CEO. And precisely, I think what he did was, within the creative team he had, say, "We need to focus on this, these are the decisions to make here. We need to cut back, not go down that path, say no to this, no to this, no to this." And that has so much value. It has brutal value, and people who haven't gone through that don't fully understand it or perceive it. You guys will agree that it's literally value creation. Creating value means creating something out of nothing that didn't exist before and that people need and ask for.

Yes, but many people will say that the creator of the iPod wasn't Steve Jobs. He wasn't at home and started drawing and said, "This is an iPod, this is where you'll listen to music." Referring to the employees.

It's the team. It's the team, but within the team, there are many skills: hiring the right people, believing in the right person, delegating to the right person, knowing which projects to pursue and which not.

Right.

It's complicated because then they'll follow the direction you give them, and it's like leading an army.

What products have they released that were absolute failures? Do you remember any?

They had a video game console.

Yes.

They had a video game console that you don't even know about, right? No, no, no. Right. Then there's the Apple Newton, which was a PDA, like an iPad, but from the 80s, 90s.

Newton. Cool name.

And then the Vision Pro.

I was going to say that. I was going to bring those. Maybe that was a flop, huh? Because you only see them in the US. And the other day I saw one in a VIP lounge at an airport, and there was a guy looking at the ceiling.

Yes, but I mean, it's the only one I've seen outside of an Apple Store.

Yes, yes, yes. I have them. I bought them in the US when they came out, and they're still there. I used them four times to create content and haven't used them since. But, well, that's another story. So, sorry, Steve Jobs had that style of constant innovation. I think the company director, the CEO, has a lot of influence on the personality and the things the company focuses on. But I think Tim Cook also did some really beastly things. Whenever we talk about personal development, about wanting to grow, something holds us back: self-knowledge, knowing who we are, what has marked us, and what we need to overcome to start growing. And we solved that some time ago. We created a compass sheet for people to get to know themselves and figure out their next challenge. That is, asking yourself what bothers you the most, what things cause you a little more suffering, to know where to start. This, Sergio, is called "La Hoja Brújula" (The Compass Sheet), and over 50,000 people have filled it out. It was a success, and it's still available. You can still download it in the description and from this QR code on the screen. But when you download it, you'll see that we've improved it. We've released an update to this compass sheet. If you've already registered in previous episodes and already have it, don't worry, because that will also reach you. It's simply an extension where we've prepared a manual for the next steps. We've created a roadmap for how to approach this new phase of personal development in the coming year. So, in this way, you have that self-knowledge from the questions and then direct application to what you need to do in those next steps, in that strategy for the next year.
But Sergio, is there anything you haven't mentioned, like the price of this compass sheet? How much does it cost?

It's 30... nothing. It's nothing, nothing. The truth is, it's free and it's amazing. It's a gift for everyone. So, you know, if you want the improved compass sheet, get it from this QR code or the link in the description, just from this episode, and we'll give it to you.

Within Apple. They brought the Apple Stores to what they are today, they built a brutal supply chain that Apple didn't have.

When you say supply chain, what do you mean? Uh, sorry, distribution. A worldwide distribution system, getting products to all stores, having iPhones in all stores on day one. Product supply to the whole world. All the logistics stuff, that's what he was an expert in. And he also made some impressive products from the Cook era, like Apple's processors, which are revolutionary.

Why are they revolutionary?

This is the famous M1 chip, right? M2, etc. Okay, okay. Look, if I ramble too much, cut me off a bit, okay? Stop. I talk a lot. We're never going to stop you, but... Okay, okay, okay, stop. There was a moment, okay, in the 90s, Apple had Motorola chips in their Macs, made by Motorola. Apple was with Motorola, and then you had everyone else, or the PC world, which was Intel or AMD. Intel, AMD. The chip design came from an 80s design, and basically, it's known as x86, the classic design, made by Intel. Then AMD made a clone of Intel, so Intel and AMD are the same, the same chip architecture, and it's still the same today for backward compatibility. So, everything old works with that architecture. That architecture is still the same today, with variations. So, there came a point where Intel improved so much that Apple's Motorola chips were left behind, they were obsolete. It was only a matter of time before Macs became trash compared to any PC. So, they said, they met with Intel and said, "Intel, give me chips. I have no choice but to buy chips from you." And they closed an agreement between Apple and Intel, and Macs became Intel. That's when the big controversy arose: are Macs now PCs? Before, they were literally different, the hardware was totally different. Now they're the same; you can install Windows on a Mac. It was very strange back then. And the Apple-Intel era began. What happened? Well, the iPhone came along. What did Apple do? They went to Intel. "Hey Intel, we need a chip for the iPhone." Intel said that the iPhone thing was a toy, that they didn't believe in it, and that they had more important things. So, Apple found a way and ended up doing it with ARM, with their own supply chain. On the other hand, the mobile chip was born as we know it today, based on a completely different system, another internal architecture of how the chip is made, which is ARM. ARM is a British company that designs these chips, and Apple is like a co-founder of it and has had special rights over patents for many years. So, the iPhone and smartphones follow a different path of technological evolution, they use this ARM evolution, and PCs continue with Intel. Intel has no competition for decades, so they do nothing. They improve the chips by 5 or 10% each year. They have no competition. Laptops, you know, Windows laptops, 3 hours of battery and they die, or five, maybe it's improved, but yes, yes, but...

And who cares? I mean, there's no competition. A laptop has 3 hours of battery. You don't like it? Then don't use laptops; buy a desktop.

So, they have no competition, they don't improve. Intel stagnates. Mobile chips continue to improve because there's competition. Qualcomm starts appearing, Apple, you know, etc. There are many companies all trying to make the best mobile chip, and mobile phones have a very clear objective: minimal battery usage, maximum power, minimal heat. Make the phone as powerful as possible, make the battery last as long as possible, and generate little heat so it doesn't burn your hand. And all the engineering focuses on improving these points until, in 2019, mobile chips are so good... 2019, we're almost there. So, you bought the first M1.

Right. It's true. In 2019, Apple says, "Man, these mobile chips are the...!" And what if I ditch Intel and put a mobile chip in the Mac? Literally, like this.

Literally, the mobile one. Yes. So, they make a special version of the mobile chip, which are Apple's M series chips. They are based on everything they've developed from the first iPhone until now. And what happens? Well, over all those years, they've been improving power per battery usage, etc. They present a laptop, the M1, which you put next to an Intel PC. The PC has 3, 4 hours of battery, and the Mac has 20.

And it doesn't even get hot.

And it doesn't even get hot. Because it's designed for... it comes from the entire line of mobile evolution. What happens? Well, for all these years, Intel and AMD have tried everything possible to improve everything they could, and now you have laptops with 7 hours of battery, things like that. But Macs still have 19 hours of battery, they don't get hot, they don't have fans, and in that case, Apple has a brutal advantage. And now something has happened very recently, a month or two ago: Apple released a laptop that has never come out before, the Neo, the cheapest one ever. MacBooks have had cheaper models. For example, there was the plain MacBook, which was plastic, there was a black one and a white one, which cost $1000. That was like the cheapest MacBook back then. And that was for its time, not now. $1000 now would be like $10,000 or something, or $1300 or $1500. Now they're releasing one that costs, I think it's around €800 in Spain or €700 in Spain. I think it costs €700. So, clearly, it's the first time Apple has released such an affordable computer. What did they do? They took the chip from the iPhone 16 Pro, the A series, right? And put it inside a laptop. And that's it.

And it works.

And it works like a charm.

Have you tried that computer?

Yes, yes, yes. I have a 50-minute review of it.

My god, man. And the thing is, do they lose money on these computers?

That's the big issue. They lose money. Well, I think they've already heavily amortized those chips because they're from the previous iPhone. I think the chips must be quite amortized.

That's the most expensive part of the computer, right? It's one of the most expensive parts.

Yes, yes, yes. Then you have the monitor, which is a slightly worse monitor than other Macs. The aluminum chassis. They've been using that chassis for years, for a long time, so they've just made a small modification and it's not something they had to do a lot of R&D for. The battery is a battery. Laptop batteries are expensive. And generally, it's not very different. If you put the new MacBook Neo next to other Macs, even the most expensive ones, you don't feel a huge difference in touch, in materials. It's quite similar. I'm thinking, Nate, have you made any videos about assembling a laptop?

No, or yes, I don't remember. Because, in truth, building a computer piece by piece has always been seen, but I've never seen anyone assemble a laptop piece by piece.

Made into briefcases and things. The problem with laptops is that everything is custom-made to fit in a very small space. So, the board is designed to fit inside the laptop body. That's another thing: most of you, if you see the Neo's board, it's like a mobile phone, it's like a mobile phone with two USB ports. And what happens is, in that price range, it's true that Qualcomm processors are also coming out, they've lowered the price to compete, which is like Apple's competition. They're also ARM, not Intel, but in the PC world, normally in those ranges, at those prices, they use an old chip and sell it cheaper and put it in a laptop. Plastic laptops with less battery life, worse screens.

Right.

That's what they do to reach the €700 price point. So, Apple comes along and offers a €700 or €800 laptop, I don't remember if it's in the US, in Spain, or with a student discount or without, but they offer this laptop that's basically the same price as what you'd get for a PC. It would be a thicker plastic laptop with a worse screen.

Bad audio.

But in terms of brand strategy, it's interesting, isn't it? Because they're making it more accessible. Before, the guy who had an iPhone was someone with money, had a good job, and so on. But now it's getting closer to everyone.

I don't think that's true. No. Because the most important market for Apple is the United States, without a doubt. It's the most important market. In the US, I always tell people, think of Apple as an American company, the American dream. In the US, people want to buy Apple; it's pride, they love it. So, there's a tendency towards that, and there's higher purchasing power. So, in Spain, an iPhone might be a salary, but in the US, an iPhone isn't a salary. You can buy an iPhone, and nothing happens. A Pro Max, depending on who you are, obviously, but it's not as expensive as in Spain. And you go to the US, and you see everyone has an iPhone, everyone. Especially the Pro Max, which you say was made for people who record videos, and everyone has it.

It's sold out. It's the best-selling of the current generation, the Pro Max. Well, the Pro in general. And sales data shows that Apple is very loved in the US and is like the main company. So, many people have Macs. People who don't buy Macs might do so because of the price. And I think they made this Mac to target the educational market niche, for students, university students, young people. They've even included certain features that suggest it's for fulfilling public tender requirements, like having a certain percentage of recycled aluminum, etc., which suggests it's a laptop aimed at being bought by a high school for its students because it has a series of environmental requirements and things like that, which can be interesting in the US.

And it makes you think. I have three takeaways from this new Mac. First, that by simply taking last year's iPhone chip and putting it in a laptop, they realized that's already better than 90% of what's on the market, and they did it because, why not? It's not free, but it's not that complex. And a question: what's the Apple product you'd say is the best in its category? I mean, obviously, it's the best in many categories, right? But if you were to say, "This is the Leo Messi of its category," would you say it's the AirPods in their category? Is it the iPhone? Is it the MacBook? For me, it's the MacBook Air. You see, you said Air, not MacBook Pro. That's the thing: in the PC world, if you want a lot of power, you need a computer with a fan that makes noise, has less battery life, is bulky, has a graphics card. In the Mac world, there isn't that much difference between the Air and the Pro. Now, the difference is that the Pro can have the Pro chip with more cores. Before, not even that; they were quite similar. And the Air is a laptop that, in the era we're in, where laptop power isn't as crucial as it used to be, almost any computer does practically everything, unless you're editing 4K, 8K videos, etc., which you can also do on the Air. I've edited 4K videos on the Air with 16GB of RAM and thought, "How can this thing do this?" I have the Air, I put 24GB of RAM in it, and I play Moto GP and it doesn't lag, it doesn't freeze. It makes no sense. If you take a PC of the same size and all that, it's trash in terms of performance and battery life. And that's what I think they do best, the laptop aspect.

There are many opinions here. Some people are very enthusiastic, but I think it's because Apple has a lot of narrative. They tell stories well. You'd have short legs if you said, "Yes, the ad is good, but then you buy the product and it's trash." But the thing is, we're talking here, and we haven't even talked about branding; we've only talked about how good the products are. It's curious. They're the best at branding and the best at products. They are very good. They are very good. And the thing is, before the M chips, I did have several videos saying, "Man, Apple is a bit screwed because this laptop is too expensive, right? You buy it, it's very expensive, it's beautiful, whatever you want, but it overheats a lot, makes a lot of noise, performs much worse than a PC, so it makes no sense." But they obviously knew that, and that's why they made the move to the M chips. And the M chip move has given them a brutal lifeline. It's the best product Tim Cook has made in his career. So, that's a victory for Tim Cook, not a victory for Steve Jobs.

Yes, in that timeline, Apple has very optimized, very well-made products, and they are targeted, so it's very optimized. Maybe people no longer perceive it as a super innovative brand that releases the most impressive technological novelties in the world. But I think they don't want to play that game. They want to play another game, a game where once you enter Apple, you don't leave because you're so happy. Which is probably what happens to you in your case, since you said you use Apple. You entered Apple and said, "Wow, why would I leave here? This is really cool. I'm not going to buy another Mac when this one breaks." Do you want to buy a PC?

No, no, far from it. I've switched from Mac to Mac. That's what they play.

What fascinates me is how they manage to normalize something that's crazy. For example, when the AirPods came out, don't you remember we all said, "But who's going to spend $600 on these headphones?" And now you walk through any city, and there are people with these big headphones who spent $600 on headphones.

I have doubts if they're all authentic, though. There are many fakes, but yes, you're right. And the iPods too. There are many, and the AirPods too, man, they cost $300. And what's more, I'll tell you something: AirPods are their best product. I'm fascinated by how they cancel noise. I mean, saying, "Man, something that seemed crazy years ago, when headphones cost $10, now people spend $250."

Yes, yes. And it's a product with a high profit margin, those headphones, right?

Of course.

Marbon doesn't use Apple, man. What do you think?

No, Apple. No. It's another product I brought you. That's another story you want to tell, right?

Yes, I want to tell you about that, but I wanted to say one more thing about Apple. The Neo. Why the Neo? I think there are three reasons. First, they can, and it's a statement that hurts the PC market, especially now that everything is very expensive, and PCs are forced to raise prices, and there are very bad laptops that are more expensive than ever. Apple releases that and it's like, "We're going to finish you off," you know? Although that's not entirely true. Maybe more so in the United States. And the second point is to hook new generations. They release a product that gains loyalty from young people from a young age, from university, from high school, who then enter their ecosystem. If you sell them a Mac or give them a Mac, that's what happens. What happens to you? You no longer want a PC, you buy AirPods, you buy an iPhone, you get into the ecosystem. Maybe you use Apple TV instead of Netflix, maybe you use Apple Music instead of Spotify. They have it all. Plus, you buy the Mac, you open it, and it says, "We're giving you three months of free Apple Music or Apple Arcade." You know? There you put your card, you put your account, and you enter the ecosystem's wheel. It's not a negative thing, the ecosystem, but it's an ecosystem that has hardware, services, and software.

Yes. And that's where they're headed.

And do you think the iPhone 17R move is something similar? To achieve a lower-end mobile.

Yes, yes, yes, without a doubt. And the third point I wanted to mention is something Steve always said he was very proud of. There's a very famous interview where he says, "All Apple products fit on this table." I'm proud of it, you know? Like, "All our products fit on this table," referring to the number of products or the size of the products. The quantity. The quantity of products, that it was a company with a very small product catalog, the best of this, the best of that, and that's it. You know? Well, now the opposite is happening. Now they have three iPhones, four iPhones, three laptops, two towers... Well, they're going to discontinue the Mac Pro, but there are two towers. They're starting to diversify. Why? The strategy of one item, the best in its category, has always worked very well for them. And I think we're in an era where, I'm seeing it in all brands, there's hyper-segmentation in the market. They're starting to make a product for the guy between 18 and 23 who does this activity, watches this content, and enjoys this. And another product for the girl between 23 and 32 who goes to yoga, likes podcasts about... you know, very rough segmentations. So, they'd have to make one called MacBook Gaming or something like that. It could be, who knows? But what I'm seeing in general in the market, when I analyze many products and see all the launches, go to all the fairs, brands have a strong tendency to increase their product lines and make products for everyone. And I think it's because segmented marketing is easier than ever. I think it's related to that.

Right.

You know? Before, it was like, "I release this product, I do a broadcast, I talk to everyone on the planet and say, 'I have this product, and it's the best.'" And now, I can do an ad for this segment of the population with this product. I can do another for this segment with that other one. So, I think it's related. I don't know if that's the direction it's going.

Do you think there's any brand that could dethrone Apple, or do you see one doing things differently and well?

Coming from China. Apple should have done that. Huawei could have done it, but Trump didn't want them to. In fact, I was at the GSMA.

What do you mean Huawei could have done it? Huawei is crazy, man. They're number two, right? In the world. Huawei's problem now is... I don't know if you know that it's a brand that's been banned from...

No. Okay, from the United States. You don't know the story? It's brutal. I actually have a really good video about it. So, Huawei, with all this, is a mobile brand. I haven't seen a Huawei computer. Have you? Huawei, look, Huawei is a company that was founded by a guy who came from the countryside in China. A Chinese guy who lived in the countryside, a language professor. What did he do? He was about 40 years old, and he was in Shenzhen. The government was encouraging people to start companies, and he said, "Well, I'll start a technology company." And he started studying, in the 80s or 90s, he started studying telephone exchanges for hotels and things like that. He studied an American one, copied it, and sold it cheaper, and that's how it started. And then they started releasing products, and it became one of the most important brands for switches and routers in the world. And they have switches everywhere, in airports, in public infrastructure, in all places, there are Huawei switches and devices at the enterprise level. And at one point, they started releasing mobile phones, and they were taking off like crazy. We're talking about them being the third-largest manufacturer by sales globally in, I think it was 2019 or so. I had one, yes. They were the third-largest manufacturer globally. They were about to surpass Samsung, and predictions said they would become the number one brand globally the following year, something like that. I don't remember offhand, but it was clear they would become the number one globally in mobile phones. And they also released laptops, headphones, everything. And at one point, Trump said, "This company... I suspect it has something to do with the Chinese government. There's something strange here. And they're putting a lot of routers and equipment in the infrastructure, especially in rural America. There's a lot of Huawei equipment. The Chinese can spy on us with this equipment. I don't trust it much." So, he put them on the list, well, a list that's like a blacklist. At first, it was a bit confusing; you didn't know what you could do or not, but basically, it says that no American company can provide to Huawei or anyone on that blacklist. What happened? Huawei sold mobile phones, they were very top-tier, and Google is an American company. Google said, "Look, I'm sorry, but you're out of Android. You can use Android because Android is open source, do whatever you want, but I won't give you Google services for your phones." "I don't want problems with Trump; I'm cutting off access." It's like if Safari didn't have Google, it had Yahoo. Well, in Apple's case, Apple has its own system, but Android mobile, Android is Google's. The App Store, the Play Store, is Google's. Right. Right. Google account, Android account, is Google's. You know? People who publish Android apps publish them in the App Store, on the Play Store. So, basically, Trump destroyed the American market for Huawei. He destroyed Huawei's ability to release phones with Google. He destroyed all...
Around the world. Around the world. But of course, Google can't trade with Huawei. Well, they can't. At first, it wasn't clear, but out of caution, they said, "This is it. I don't want to fight with my government." And then it spread. They manufactured chips in Taiwan using ARM chips, that British company that makes these chip designs. And Apple is like a co-founder of it and has had special rights over patents for many years. So, the iPhone and smartphones follow a different path of technological evolution, they use this ARM evolution. And PCs continue with Intel. Intel has no competition for decades, so they do nothing. They improve the chips by 5 or 10% each year. They have no competition. Laptops, you know, Windows laptops, 3 hours of battery and they die, or five, maybe it's improved, but yes, yes, but...

And who cares? I mean, there's no competition. A laptop has 3 hours of battery. You don't like it? Then don't use laptops; buy a desktop.

So, they have no competition, they don't improve. Intel stagnates. Mobile chips continue to improve because there's competition. Qualcomm starts appearing, Apple, you know, etc. There are many companies all trying to make the best mobile chip, and mobile phones have a very clear objective: minimal battery usage, maximum power, minimal heat. Make the phone as powerful as possible, make the battery last as long as possible, and generate little heat so it doesn't burn your hand. And all the engineering focuses on improving these points until, in 2019, mobile chips are so good... 2019, we're almost there. So, you bought the first M1.

Right. It's true. In 2019, Apple says, "Man, these mobile chips are the...!" And what if I ditch Intel and put a mobile chip in the Mac? Literally, like this.

Literally, the mobile one. Yes. So, they make a special version of the mobile chip, which are Apple's M series chips. They are based on everything they've developed from the first iPhone until now. And what happens? Well, over all those years, they've been improving power per battery usage, etc. They present a laptop, the M1, which you put next to an Intel PC. The PC has 3, 4 hours of battery, and the Mac has 20.

And it doesn't even get hot.

And it doesn't even get hot. Because it's designed for... it comes from the entire line of mobile evolution. What happens? Well, for all these years, Intel and AMD have tried everything possible to improve everything they could, and now you have laptops with 7 hours of battery, things like that. But Macs still have 19 hours of battery, they don't get hot, they don't have fans, and in that case, Apple has a brutal advantage. And now something has happened very recently, a month or two ago: Apple released a laptop that has never come out before, the Neo, the cheapest one ever. MacBooks have had cheaper models. For example, there was the plain MacBook, which was plastic, there was a black one and a white one, which cost $1000. That was like the cheapest MacBook back then. And that was for its time, not now. $1000 now would be like $10,000 or something, or $1300 or $1500. Now they're releasing one that costs, I think it's around €800 in Spain or €700 in Spain. I think it costs €700. So, clearly, it's the first time Apple has released such an affordable computer. What did they do? They took the chip from the iPhone 16 Pro, the A series, right? And put it inside a laptop. And that's it.

And it works.

And it works like a charm.

Have you tried that computer?

Yes, yes, yes. I have a 50-minute review of it.

My god, man. And the thing is, do they lose money on these computers?

That's the big issue. They lose money. Well, I think they've already heavily amortized those chips because they're from the previous iPhone. I think the chips must be quite amortized.

That's the most expensive part of the computer, right? It's one of the most expensive parts.

Yes, yes, yes. Then you have the monitor, which is a slightly worse monitor than other Macs. The aluminum chassis. They've been using that chassis for years, for a long time, so they've just made a small modification and it's not something they had to do a lot of R&D for. The battery is a battery. Laptop batteries are expensive. And generally, it's not very different. If you put the new MacBook Neo next to other Macs, even the most expensive ones, you don't feel a huge difference in touch, in materials. It's quite similar. I'm thinking, Nate, have you made any videos about assembling a laptop?

No, or yes, I don't remember. Because, in truth, building a computer piece by piece has always been seen, but I've never seen anyone assemble a laptop piece by piece.

Made into briefcases and things. The problem with laptops is that everything is custom-made to fit in a very small space. So, the board is designed to fit inside the laptop body. That's another thing: most of you, if you see the Neo's board, it's like a mobile phone, it's like a mobile phone with two USB ports. And what happens is, in that price range, it's true that Qualcomm processors are also coming out, they've lowered the price to compete, which is like Apple's competition. They're also ARM, not Intel, but in the PC world, normally in those ranges, at those prices, they use an old chip and sell it cheaper and put it in a laptop. Plastic laptops with less battery life, worse screens.

Right.

That's what they do to reach the €700 price point. So, Apple comes along and offers a €700 or €800 laptop, I don't remember if it's in the US, in Spain, or with a student discount or without, but they offer this laptop that's basically the same price as what you'd get for a PC. It would be a thicker plastic laptop with a worse screen.

Bad audio.

But in terms of brand strategy, it's interesting, isn't it? Because they're making it more accessible. Before, the guy who had an iPhone was someone with money, had a good job, and so on. But now it's getting closer to everyone.

I don't think that's true. No. Because the most important market for Apple is the United States, without a doubt. It's the most important market. In the US, I always tell people, think of Apple as an American company, the American dream. In the US, people want to buy Apple; it's pride, they love it. So, there's a tendency towards that, and there's higher purchasing power. So, in Spain, an iPhone might be a salary, but in the US, an iPhone isn't a salary. You can buy an iPhone, and nothing happens. A Pro Max, depending on who you are, obviously, but it's not as expensive as in Spain. And you go to the US, and you see everyone has an iPhone, everyone. Especially the Pro Max, which you say was made for people who record videos, and everyone has it.

It's sold out. It's the best-selling of the current generation, the Pro Max. Well, the Pro in general. And sales data shows that Apple is very loved in the US and is like the main company. So, many people have Macs. People who don't buy Macs might do so because of the price. And I think they made this Mac to target the educational market niche, for students, university students, young people. They've even included certain features that suggest it's for fulfilling public tender requirements, like having a certain percentage of recycled aluminum, etc., which suggests it's a laptop aimed at being bought by a high school for its students because it has a series of environmental requirements and things like that, which can be interesting in the US.

And it makes you think. I have three takeaways from this new Mac. First, that by simply taking last year's iPhone chip and putting it in a laptop, they realized that's already better than 90% of what's on the market, and they did it because, why not? It's not free, but it's not that complex. And a question: what's the Apple product you'd say is the best in its category? I mean, obviously, it's the best in many categories, right? But if you were to say, "This is the Leo Messi of its category," would you say it's the AirPods in their category? Is it the iPhone? Is it the MacBook? For me, it's the MacBook Air. You see, you said Air, not MacBook Pro. That's the thing: in the PC world, if you want a lot of power, you need a computer with a fan that makes noise, has less battery life, is bulky, has a graphics card. In the Mac world, there isn't that much difference between the Air and the Pro. Now, the difference is that the Pro can have the Pro chip with more cores. Before, not even that; they were quite similar. And the Air is a laptop that, in the era we're in, where laptop power isn't as crucial as it used to be, almost any computer does practically everything, unless you're editing 4K, 8K videos, etc., which you can also do on the Air. I've edited 4K videos on the Air with 16GB of RAM and thought, "How can this thing do this?" I have the Air, I put 24GB of RAM in it, and I play Moto GP and it doesn't lag, it doesn't freeze. It makes no sense. If you take a PC of the same size and all that, it's trash in terms of performance and battery life. And that's what I think they do best, the laptop aspect.

There are many opinions here. Some people are very enthusiastic, but I think it's because Apple has a lot of narrative. They tell stories well. You'd have short legs if you said, "Yes, the ad is good, but then you buy the product and it's trash." But the thing is, we're talking here, and we haven't even talked about branding; we've only talked about how good the products are. It's curious. They're the best at branding and the best at products. They are very good. They are very good. And the thing is, before the M chips, I did have several videos saying, "Man, Apple is a bit screwed because this laptop is too expensive, right? You buy it, it's very expensive, it's beautiful, whatever you want, but it overheats a lot, makes a lot of noise, performs much worse than a PC, so it makes no sense." But they obviously knew that, and that's why they made the move to the M chips. And the M chip move has given them a brutal lifeline. It's the best product Tim Cook has made in his career. So, that's a victory for Tim Cook, not a victory for Steve Jobs.

Yes, in that timeline, Apple has very optimized, very well-made products, and they are targeted, so it's very optimized. Maybe people no longer perceive it as a super innovative brand that releases the most impressive technological novelties in the world. But I think they don't want to play that game. They want to play another game, a game where once you enter Apple, you don't leave because you're so happy. Which is probably what happens to you in your case, since you said you use Apple. You entered Apple and said, "Wow, why would I leave here? This is really cool. I'm not going to buy another Mac when this one breaks." Do you want to buy a PC?

No, no, far from it. I've switched from Mac to Mac. That's what they play.

What fascinates me is how they manage to normalize something that's crazy. For example, when the AirPods came out, don't you remember we all said, "But who's going to spend $600 on these headphones?" And now you walk through any city, and there are people with these big headphones who spent $600 on headphones.

I have doubts if they're all authentic, though. There are many fakes, but yes, you're right. And the iPods too. There are many, and the AirPods too, man, they cost $300. And what's more, I'll tell you something: AirPods are their best product. I'm fascinated by how they cancel noise. I mean, saying, "Man, something that seemed crazy years ago, when headphones cost $10, now people spend $250."

Yes, yes. And it's a product with a high profit margin, those headphones, right?

Of course.

Marbon doesn't use Apple, man. What do you think?

No, Apple. No. It's another product I brought you. That's another story you want to tell, right?

Yes, I want to tell you about that, but I wanted to say one more thing about Apple. The Neo. Why the Neo? I think there are three reasons. First, they can, and it's a statement that hurts the PC market, especially now that everything is very expensive, and PCs are forced to raise prices, and there are very bad laptops that are more expensive than ever. Apple releases that and it's like, "We're going to finish you off," you know? Although that's not entirely true. Maybe more so in the United States. And the second point is to hook new generations. They release a product that gains loyalty from young people from a young age, from university, from high school, who then enter their ecosystem. If you sell them a Mac or give them a Mac, that's what happens. What happens to you? You no longer want a PC, you buy AirPods, you buy an iPhone, you get into the ecosystem. Maybe you use Apple TV instead of Netflix, maybe you use Apple Music instead of Spotify. They have it all. Plus, you buy the Mac, you open it, and it says, "We're giving you three months of free Apple Music or Apple Arcade." You know? There you put your card, you put your account, and you enter the ecosystem's wheel. It's not a negative thing, the ecosystem, but it's an ecosystem that has hardware, services, and software.

Yes. And that's where they're headed.

And do you think the iPhone 17R move is something similar? To achieve a lower-end mobile.

Yes, yes, yes, without a doubt. And the third point I wanted to mention is something Steve always said he was very proud of. There's a very famous interview where he says, "All Apple products fit on this table." I'm proud of it, you know? Like, "All our products fit on this table," referring to the number of products or the size of the products. The quantity. The quantity of products, that it was a company with a very small product catalog, the best of this, the best of that, and that's it. You know? Well, now the opposite is happening. Now they have three iPhones, four iPhones, three laptops, two towers... Well, they're going to discontinue the Mac Pro, but there are two towers. They're starting to diversify. Why? The strategy of one item, the best in its category, has always worked very well for them. And I think we're in an era where, I'm seeing it in all brands, there's hyper-segmentation in the market. They're starting to make a product for the guy between 18 and 23 who does this activity, watches this content, and enjoys this. And another product for the girl between 23 and 32 who goes to yoga, likes podcasts about... you know, very rough segmentations. So, they'd have to make one called MacBook Gaming or something like that. It could be, who knows? But what I'm seeing in general in the market, when I analyze many products and see all the launches, go to all the fairs, brands have a strong tendency to increase their product lines and make products for everyone. And I think it's because segmented marketing is easier than ever. I think it's related to that.

Right.

You know? Before, it was like, "I release this product, I do a broadcast, I talk to everyone on the planet and say, 'I have this product, and it's the best.'" And now, I can do an ad for this segment of the population with this product. I can do another for this segment with that other one. So, I think it's related. I don't know if that's the direction it's going.

Do you think there's any brand that could dethrone Apple, or do you see one doing things differently and well?

Coming from China. Apple should have done that. Huawei could have done it, but Trump didn't want them to. In fact, I was at the GSMA.

What do you mean Huawei could have done it? Huawei is crazy, man. They're number two, right? In the world. Huawei's problem now is... I don't know if you know that it's a brand that's been banned from...

No. Okay, from the United States. You don't know the story? It's brutal. I actually have a really good video about it. So, Huawei, with all this, is a mobile brand. I haven't seen a Huawei computer. Have you? Huawei, look, Huawei is a company that was founded by a guy who came from the countryside in China. A Chinese guy who lived in the countryside, a language professor. What did he do? He was about 40 years old, and he was in Shenzhen. The government was encouraging people to start companies, and he said, "Well, I'll start a technology company." And he started studying, in the 80s or 90s, he started studying telephone exchanges for hotels and things like that. He studied an American one, copied it, and sold it cheaper, and that's how it started. And then they started releasing products, and it became one of the most important brands for switches and routers in the world. And they have switches everywhere, in airports, in public infrastructure, in all places, there are Huawei switches and devices at the enterprise level. And at one point, they started releasing mobile phones, and they were taking off like crazy. We're talking about them being the third-largest manufacturer by sales globally in, I think it was 2019 or so. I had one, yes. They were the third-largest manufacturer globally. They were about to surpass Samsung, and predictions said they would become the number one brand globally the following year, something like that. I don't remember offhand, but it was clear they would become the number one globally in mobile phones. And they also released laptops, headphones, everything. And at one point, Trump said, "This company... I suspect it has something to do with the Chinese government. There's something strange here. And they're putting a lot of routers and equipment in the infrastructure, especially in rural America. There's a lot of Huawei equipment. The Chinese can spy on us with this equipment. I don't trust it much." So, he put them on the list, well, a list that's like a blacklist. At first, it was a bit confusing; you didn't know what you could do or not, but basically, it says that no American company can provide to Huawei or anyone on that blacklist. What happened? Huawei sold mobile phones, they were very top-tier, and Google is an American company. Google said, "Look, I'm sorry, but you're out of Android. You can use Android because Android is open source, do whatever you want, but I won't give you Google services for your phones." "I don't want problems with Trump; I'm cutting off access." It's like if Safari didn't have Google, it had Yahoo. Well, in Apple's case, Apple has its own system, but Android mobile, Android is Google's. The App Store, the Play Store, is Google's. Right. Right. Google account, Android account, is Google's. You know? People who publish Android apps publish them in the App Store, on the Play Store. So, basically, Trump destroyed the American market for Huawei. He destroyed Huawei's ability to release phones with Google. He destroyed all...
Around the world. Around the world. But of course, Google can't trade with Huawei. Well, they can't. At first, it wasn't clear, but out of caution, they said, "This is it. I don't want to fight with my government." And then it spread. They manufactured chips in Taiwan using ARM chips, that British company that makes these chip designs. And Apple is like a co-founder of it and has had special rights over patents for many years. So, the iPhone and smartphones follow a different path of technological evolution, they use this ARM evolution. And PCs continue with Intel. Intel has no competition for decades, so they do nothing. They improve the chips by 5 or 10% each year. They have no competition. Laptops, you know, Windows laptops, 3 hours of battery and they die, or five, maybe it's improved, but yes, yes, but...

And who cares? I mean, there's no competition. A laptop has 3 hours of battery. You don't like it? Then don't use laptops; buy a desktop.

So, they have no competition, they don't improve. Intel stagnates. Mobile chips continue to improve because there's competition. Qualcomm starts appearing, Apple, you know, etc. There are many companies all trying to make the best mobile chip, and mobile phones have a very clear objective: minimal battery usage, maximum power, minimal heat. Make the phone as powerful as possible, make the battery last as long as possible, and generate little heat so it doesn't burn your hand. And all the engineering focuses on improving these points until, in 2019, mobile chips are so good... 2019, we're almost there. So, you bought the first M1.

Right. It's true. In 2019, Apple says, "Man, these mobile chips are the...!" And what if I ditch Intel and put a mobile chip in the Mac? Literally, like this.

Literally, the mobile one. Yes. So, they make a special version of the mobile chip, which are Apple's M series chips. They are based on everything they've developed from the first iPhone until now. And what happens? Well, over all those years, they've been improving power per battery usage, etc. They present a laptop, the M1, which you put next to an Intel PC. The PC has 3, 4 hours of battery, and the Mac has 20.

And it doesn't even get hot.

And it doesn't even get hot. Because it's designed for... it comes from the entire line of mobile evolution. What happens? Well, for all these years, Intel and AMD have tried everything possible to improve everything they could, and now you have laptops with 7 hours of battery, things like that. But Macs still have 19 hours of battery, they don't get hot, they don't have fans, and in that case, Apple has a brutal advantage. And now something has happened very recently, a month or two ago: Apple released a laptop that has never come out before, the Neo, the cheapest one ever. MacBooks have had cheaper models. For example, there was the plain MacBook, which was plastic, there was a black one and a white one, which cost $1000. That was like the cheapest MacBook back then. And that was for its time, not now. $1000 now would be like $10,000 or something, or $1300 or $1500. Now they're releasing one that costs, I think it's around €800 in Spain or €700 in Spain. I think it costs €700. So, clearly, it's the first time Apple has released such an affordable computer. What did they do? They took the chip from the iPhone 16 Pro, the A series, right? And put it inside a laptop. And that's it.

And it works.

And it works like a charm.

Have you tried that computer?

Yes, yes, yes. I have a 50-minute review of it.

My god, man. And the thing is, do they lose money on these computers?

That's the big issue. They lose money. Well, I think they've already heavily amortized those chips because they're from the previous iPhone. I think the chips must be quite amortized.

That's the most expensive part of the computer, right? It's one of the most expensive parts.

Yes, yes, yes. Then you have the monitor, which is a slightly worse monitor than other Macs. The aluminum chassis. They've been using that chassis for years, for a long time, so they've just made a small modification and it's not something they had to do a lot of R&D for. The battery is a battery. Laptop batteries are expensive. And generally, it's not very different. If you put the new MacBook Neo next to other Macs, even the most expensive ones, you don't feel a huge difference in touch, in materials. It's quite similar. I'm thinking, Nate, have you made any videos about assembling a laptop?

No, or yes, I don't remember. Because, in truth, building a computer piece by piece has always been seen, but I've never seen anyone assemble a laptop piece by piece.

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