When the Money Runs Out Before the Servers Do

Alphabet's Q2 2026 produced −$5.9 billion of free cash flow, the first negative quarter in the company's public history, as hyperscaler capital expenditure reached 31–83% of revenue, ratios previously confined to utilities and telecoms. That arithmetic has changed the CFO's job description: debt issuance is now a quarterly operational necessity rather than an opportunistic transaction, and capital…