No. of Recommendations: 2
But one could make a case that what's riding on that rate of return is the valuation case at $350ish, not the existence and future (and future growth) of the business. If it all comes a cropper and they burn half a trillion, the other revenue streams will earn their way out of it, given time. They make a LOT of money. Meta survived...well, the metaverse...and, at a larger scale, Google could survive a pretty big AI overexuberance.
There is no question GOOG will be a survivor no matter what happens with their AI spending, assuming it stops at some point if the returns are poor. So yes it's clearly a valuation issue, which determines the range of future returns to investors. Current valuation assumes a lot of future growth; if that comes true, forward returns to shareholders will be good. If not, they will be poor (similar to KO in 1998).
