So Google's massive revenues are no longer sufficient to fund its AI spending spree

[aj@gts.sadauskas.id.au]

So Google's massive revenues are no longer sufficient to fund its AI spending spree.

The Guardian is reporting it's going to issue US$80 billion in new shares, including the US$10 billion it's selling to Berkshire Hathaway.

Let's put that number into context.

Imagine a person who earns a good wage, say $100,000 a year on average throughout their working life.

If they work full time for 40 years, that's $4 million in lifetime wages.

If you add together the lifetime earnings of 1000 such people, you get to $4 billion.

At $80 billion, Google is asking for the lifetime wages of 20,000 workers on a good income.

That's an obscene amount of money!

If we're in a bubble right now, then it's inflating a ridiculous amount.

"The move, the largest equity fundraising ever according to analysts, includes a $10bn share sale to the US investment group Berkshire Hathaway, which was led until last year by the investment guru Warren Buffett.

"Alphabet, which is behind the Gemini system that has been increasing its share of the AI chatbot market, said it would use the money to expand its “world-class AI compute infrastructure to meet its unprecedented customer demand”.
...
"Nicholas Hyett, the lead alternatives analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the planned stock sale was much larger than previous secondary share sales, and would also raise more money than the largest stock market flotations, known as initial public offering (IPOs).

"'Alphabet’s $80bn fundraise dwarfs the world’s largest IPOs, often the moment of maximum excitement when companies seek to fill their financial war chests,' he said. 'In fact, if successful, it would raise more than the world’s three largest initial public offerings put together – Saudi Aramco raised $25.6bn when it debuted on the Saudi exchange in 2019; Alibaba raised $21.8bn on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014; and SoftBank raised $21.3bn when it listed in Tokyo in 2018.

"'We can’t think of a secondary issue that would even come close to matching the ambition of this fundraise … and there just aren’t many companies in the world that have the ability to spend that amount of money productively.'
...
"However, such a huge fundraising is also a warning to the markets that for all the many billions of dollars thrown at AI infrastructure, meaningful returns to investors have so far been limited."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/02/google-alphabet-sell-stock-ai-share-sale-berkshire-hathaway

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