Fortune: Half of Google and Amazon's 'Blowout AI Profits' Came From Anthropic Stake
Fortune·high signal
Alphabet's record $62.6B Q1 profit included a $36.9B equity gain — triple the prior peak — driven primarily by its ~14% stake in Anthropic at a $380B valuation (~$53B carrying value). Nearly half of the 'AI profit' narrative is accounting markup on a private company investment, not revenue from actual AI products. This raises questions about whether big tech's AI earnings story is real operational performance or financial engineering.