$GOOGL stopped funding its own growth out of what it earns. It is now selling stock instead of buying it back. Buybacks are at zero, against $13.2 billion in the same quarter last year. In June the company raised $49.6 billion in equity and preferred shares, issued notes during the quarter on top of that, and long term debt has more than doubled since December. Interest expense went from $261 million to $1.3 billion. The cash flow statement is why. Alphabet generated $39.1 billion from operations and spent $44.9 billion on property and equipment. Free cash flow was negative, the first negative quarter in the 8 it discloses. The headline earnings hide this. Reported earnings were $9.11 per share, and $6.26 of that came from gains on equity holdings Alphabet describes as primarily unrealized. Strip them and the quarter earned roughly what it earned last quarter. The record everyone is printing is mostly a paper markup. The spending is producing something. Cloud grew 82%, its profit more than tripled, and its operating margin went from 20.7% to 35.6%. Customers have signed $514 billion of contracts not yet delivered. Alphabet could always pay for whatever it wanted out of what it made. Is negative free cash flow a problem here, or just the cost of building right now?