How Soon Can Google Investors Make Bank?

This is Part 1 of HackerNoon's round up of quarterly earnings. Part 2 will cover companies that are due to report their results this week.

Alphabet is killin' it. The Google owner made more in profit and sales during the second quarter of this year than it did during the same period in 2023.

Second-quarter net income was $23.62 billion while revenue stood at $84.74 billion, above the $18.37 billion in profit Alphabet made in the same quarter last year on sales of $74.6 billion.

Better yet, the results beat analyst expectations of a $22.9 billion profit on revenue of $84.19 billion.

Now, even though Alphabet made more money AND beat expectations, investor response was.. muted. The company's stock rose briefly before falling back down. Why?

The answer may lie in artificial intelligence and the impatience with which Wall Street is approaching the technology.

Alphabet's earnings release showed the company was doubling down on purchases of property and equipment, a line item that signals its investments in hardware to set up a formidable competitor to a host of generative AI products, including Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Alphabet spent $13.19 billion on property and equipment purchases during Q2 and $25.2 billion during the first six months of 2024 — in both cases, nearly double year over year.

It's not all hardware though. The company's CFO also flagged an increase in Alphabet's content acquisition costs during the quarter.

Ruth Porat, the CFO, did not specify what she meant by content acquisition costs, but an educated guess would suggest the licensing agreements Google may be entering for content that could be used to train its AI products.

In a nutshell, Alphabet, which is trying to play catch up in artificial intelligence, is continuing to buy hardware and striking licensing deals to make its product better and better.

Investors' question: how soon can they expect to make bank?

You see, now that the artificial intelligence fever dream is cooling down, Wall Street wants to know how much more these companies will need to spend before such investments become profitable.

OpenAI, for example, is reportedly on the look out for billions to stave off a possible bankruptcy in the next 12 months. Not that such a thing would happen, but it should give you an idea of the billions companies are burning to stay ahead of the curve.

In Google's case, things are a little more dicey. The company's AI offerings have a habit of putting the company in hot waters, such as when an AI-powered search result suggested using glue to better hold cheese on a pizza.

Any hiccups in Google's ability to present accurate and useful search results, especially if it now involves AI, is problematic for the company because Search is quite literally the company's bread and butter.

And with OpenAI now demoing its own 'search engine' with SearchGPT, things appear to be heating up.  No wonder Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai called ChatGPT a code red situation.

Investors are rightly towing a cautious line in Google's case, both in terms of sheer cost and the long-term viability of its market position in the AI space.

AI isn't the only space Alphabet has faced setbacks. Wiz recently rebuffed the company's $23 billion offer to acquire the cybersecurity firm, telling employees that it would go public instead.

Can nothing go right for the tech behemoth?

Google ranked #15 on HackerNoon's tech company rankings this week. Microsoft was on the #3 spot.

In Other News.. 📰

• U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to Be Funded Partly by Revaluing Fed's Gold, Draft Bill Shows — via CoinDesk
• OpenAI endorses Senate bills that could shape America’s AI policy — via TechCrunch
• Google’s Olympics ad went viral for all the wrong reasons — via CNN
• Exclusive: New US rule on foreign chip equipment exports to China to exempt some allies — via Reuters
• This AI tool can plan your next vacation — via Axios
• CrowdStrike shares plunge 9.7% to lowest level of the year on report that Delta may seek damages — via CNBC

And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️

**— Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon

*All rankings are current as of Monday. To see how the rankings have changed, please visit HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings page.*Tech, What the Heck!? is a once-weekly newsletter written by HackerNoon editors that combine HackerNoon's proprietary data with news-worthy tech stories from around the internet. Humorous and insightful, the newsletter recaps trending events that are shaping the world of tech. Subscribe here.*