October 30, 2025
Cash volcano, cloud blues
Alphabet tops $100B quarterly revenue for first time, cloud grows 34%
Fans cheer the cash volcano while devs rage at deprecations and cloud lock‑in
TLDR: Alphabet broke $100B in quarterly revenue as Google Cloud surged 34% on AI demand and big spending plans. Comments split between cheers for Google’s momentum and frustration over deprecations, lock‑in, and AWS possibly losing ground, with some betting Google outlasts rivals when easy VC money fades.
Alphabet smashed past $100B quarterly revenue and Google Cloud jumped 34%, but the real fireworks were in the comments. One camp rolled out confetti—$155B in cloud backlog, a $10B Meta deal, Gemini hitting 650M users—while stock popped 5%. Others grabbed popcorn. User andrewstuart called Google a “nothing company” squatting on a cash volcano, joking that YouTube at $1B was the deal of the century. Meanwhile, devs like RedShift1 praised GCP’s reliability for everyday stuff, then groaned about Google’s habit of killing features, dubbing it “deprecation bingo” that creates busy work. The EU’s $3.45B fine? Commenters shrugged—“cost of doing monopoly,” one quipped.
The cloud war became the main stage. JCM9 posted the scoreboard: Microsoft’s Azure up 40%, AWS could slip to #2 soon, and Google is upselling AI to 70% of cloud customers. Then tomaytotomato crashed the party: cloud is just “renting someone else’s computer,” a mainframe revival where customers are powerless. Finally, shubhamjain dropped the spiciest take: Google wins the AI race when VC money dries up, painting ChatGPT as brilliant but fiscally reckless. Meme of the night: “Cash volcano vs. cloud lock‑in”—with CapEx plans swelling to $91–93B and more coming in 2026, fans and skeptics battled over whether the boom is genius strategy or golden handcuffs.
Key Points
- •Alphabet Q3 revenue was $102.35 billion and adjusted EPS $3.10, both above LSEG estimates; shares rose 5% after hours.
- •Google Cloud revenue reached $15.15 billion, up 35% year over year, with a $155 billion backlog driven by AI demand, including Gemini 2.5.
- •Alphabet raised 2025 CapEx guidance to $91–$93 billion and signaled a significant increase for 2026; most spending targets technical infrastructure.
- •YouTube ads delivered $10.26 billion, Google Search $56.56 billion (up 15% YoY), and TAC was $14.87 billion, all near or above estimates.
- •Alphabet’s net income rose to $34.97 billion; a $3.45 billion EU antitrust fine impacted reported net income; Microsoft’s Azure grew 40% for comparison.