Stratechery: Apple's earnings are constrained by chip shortages, not the memory crunch everyone assumed
Stratechery·low signal
Ben Thompson's August 10, 2026 Stratechery post argues that the ceiling on Apple's earnings and stock is chip supply rather than the memory shortage that has dominated commentary this cycle, then returns to Amazon's earnings and Andy Jassy's market analysis. The distinction matters for anyone modeling AI hardware cost curves — memory and logic constraints have different lead times and different implications for when device-side inference gets cheap. Full analysis is behind Stratechery Plus ($15/month), so this is the thesis rather than the supporting figures.