Google's Free Cash Flow Heading To Zero

Semianalysis CEO Dylan Patel predicts Google's free cash flow will hit zero in 2026, as Alphabet's capital expenditure guidance of $175-185 billion nearly matches its $164.7 billion in 2025 operating cash flow. Alphabet's capex has surged from $32.3 billion in 2023 to $91.4 billion in 2025, with another near-doubling projected. Patel frames this not as a warning but as bullish conviction, arguing Google and Amazon are history's best capital allocators. Amazon's free cash flow already collapsed 66% in 2025, while Meta and Microsoft are similarly spending aggressively on AI infrastructure.