A Negroni and a Sapporo: A Tale of Two Rooms

The future of AI won’t be built in a single room. It’s time to start crossing the street.

The first was a happy hour full of operators. Senior people with teams, budgets, and real constraints. We spoke about career paths, of family life, of starting and running businesses, of pressing current policies defining our city.

While AI was a hot topic, it still felt more theoretical than practical. At one point when describing my work, someone remarked:

“Vibe coding! I just heard that term for the first time today, but I’ve never seen it before! Can I buy you coffee so you can show me sometime?”

Negroni in hand, I decided to have a little fun.

“No need to wait for coffee,” I told her. “Want to vibe code something right now?”

Within 15 minutes, we built a functioning Swedish flashcard mini-app for another happy hour attendee.

“Wow,” she remarked. “My husband and I have been kicking around this business idea for years. We had no idea how to get started.”

“You do now.”

In the middle of our impromptu vibe coding session, someone I’d met earlier that night tapped me on the shoulder.

“We were looking for you,” she said. “I met someone who wants to talk about AI. Of course, you were easy to spot. You’re the only one here on your computer.”

Sheepishly, I glanced around and closed my laptop.

“We want to invest in technology,” I was told. “But the quotes we’re getting from engineers seem outrageous.”

“You can build more on your own than you might think,” I replied. “You just need to know how to get started.”

But I had to go. I was running late for the other room.

“Are you here for the vibe coding event?” I asked. “Can you buzz me up with you?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Are you an engineer too?”

“Isn’t everyone now?” I replied.

“Fair enough.” A beat. “So how long have you been a developer?”

I tried to consider how to quantify my work.

“About a year or so, I guess.” I decided.

When the elevator doors opened, I noticed two things immediately: Nearly every seat already held an open laptop, and I was one of only two women in the room. They says anyone can build without code now. But our social code hasn’t caught up yet.

A few years ago, I would have wondered where all the senior women in my network were. Last night, I didn’t have to wonder. I’d just left a room full of them. Since I crashed in late, I nudged a fellow participant to ask where he’d found his beer.

“Don’t worry, I got you,” he said and leaned across the table to his leather laptop bag on the ground, where he extracted a Sapporo and handed it to me.

“Wow,” I replied. “I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve ever been served a beer out of a messenger bag.”

Sheepishly, he smiled. “I didn’t want to miss anything, so I stashed an extra just in case.”

We watched the split screen live coding competition unfolding in front of us. While the structure was different, the prompt felt familiar: Build something new in 15 minutes.

I’d just done that over a negroni. Surely I could do it again, over Sapporo.

“Do you have an engineering background?” I was asked again, in the back of the room while the other competitors clicked away on their keyboards.

It was the third time I’d been asked in an hour. In the first room, engineering felt like a luxury good. Something expensive and out of reach. But in this room, it was the price of admission, a badge of honor for card-carrying holders. Ten blocks east, I’d been the only builder in the room. Now, it felt like I was the only outsider.

I looked back at him long and hard, considering how to answer. I run an AI learning lab. I have two apps live in the App Store. Twenty minutes ago, I built a stranger a working language tool over a negroni.

But do I have an engineering background?

“No,” I said, simply.

He didn’t ask me to elaborate.

Maybe the AI age isn’t short on talent or problems. It’s just short on people who are willing to move between rooms.

The first was a happy hour full of operators. Senior people with teams, budgets, and real constraints. We spoke about career paths, of family life, of starting and running businesses, of pressing current policies defining our city.

While AI was a hot topic, it still felt more theoretical than practical. At one point when describing my work, someone remarked:

“Vibe coding! I just heard that term for the first time today, but I’ve never seen it before! Can I buy you coffee so you can show me sometime?”

Negroni in hand, I decided to have a little fun.

“No need to wait for coffee,” I told her. “Want to vibe code something right now?”

Within 15 minutes, we built a functioning Swedish flashcard mini-app for another happy hour attendee.

“Wow,” she remarked. “My husband and I have been kicking around this business idea for years. We had no idea how to get started.”

“You do now.”

In the middle of our impromptu vibe coding session, someone I’d met earlier that night tapped me on the shoulder.

“We were looking for you,” she said. “I met someone who wants to talk about AI. Of course, you were easy to spot. You’re the only one here on your computer.”

Sheepishly, I glanced around and closed my laptop.

“We want to invest in technology,” I was told. “But the quotes we’re getting from engineers seem outrageous.”

“You can build more on your own than you might think,” I replied. “You just need to know how to get started.”

But I had to go. I was running late for the other room.

“Are you here for the vibe coding event?” I asked. “Can you buzz me up with you?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Are you an engineer too?”

“Isn’t everyone now?” I replied.

“Fair enough.” A beat. “So how long have you been a developer?”

I tried to consider how to quantify my work.

“About a year or so, I guess.” I decided.

When the elevator doors opened, I noticed two things immediately: Nearly every seat already held an open laptop, and I was one of only two women in the room. They says anyone can build without code now. But our social code hasn’t caught up yet.

A few years ago, I would have wondered where all the senior women in my network were. Last night, I didn’t have to wonder. I’d just left a room full of them. Since I crashed in late, I nudged a fellow participant to ask where he’d found his beer.

“Don’t worry, I got you,” he said and leaned across the table to his leather laptop bag on the ground, where he extracted a Sapporo and handed it to me.

“Wow,” I replied. “I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve ever been served a beer out of a messenger bag.”

Sheepishly, he smiled. “I didn’t want to miss anything, so I stashed an extra just in case.”

We watched the split screen live coding competition unfolding in front of us. While the structure was different, the prompt felt familiar: Build something new in 15 minutes.

I’d just done that over a negroni. Surely I could do it again, over Sapporo.

“Do you have an engineering background?” I was asked again, in the back of the room while the other competitors clicked away on their keyboards.

It was the third time I’d been asked in an hour. In the first room, engineering felt like a luxury good. Something expensive and out of reach. But in this room, it was the price of admission, a badge of honor for card-carrying holders. Ten blocks east, I’d been the only builder in the room. Now, it felt like I was the only outsider.

I looked back at him long and hard, considering how to answer. I run an AI learning lab. I have two apps live in the App Store. Twenty minutes ago, I built a stranger a working language tool over a negroni.

But do I have an engineering background?

“No,” I said, simply.

He didn’t ask me to elaborate.

Maybe the AI age isn’t short on talent or problems. It’s just short on people who are willing to move between rooms.