In Q2, "other income", mostly from investment gains, at Amazon and Alphabet totaled ~$121B after taxes and made up 66% and 71%, respectively, of profits
THE SO WHAT
When ~66–71% of quarterly profit comes from investment gains—much of it tied to AI bets—you can’t read Big Tech earnings as a clean signal of operating health. Operators should separate core-margin trends from mark-to-market noise before benchmarking, and assume AI-adjacent equity swings will keep distorting comps.
READ THE SOURCE
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