$GOOGL spends more on data centers than $META in dollars. Relative to the size of each business, Meta spends more, about half of revenue against roughly 40% for Alphabet. Meta's quarter itself was fine. Revenue beat, and the EPS miss came from the legal charge and severance. Strip them out and Meta slightly beat expectations. The company even reaffirmed that full year operating income grows over 2025. The stock fell anyway, because none of that is the story. Meta now puts nearly everything the business earns into data centers, stopped buying back stock, borrowed $25 billion, and if cash generation holds at its current pace, free cash flow goes negative for the rest of the year. The full year profit grows on paper while the cash behind it is already spent, and the revenue growth meant to pay for the buildout is slowing. Alphabet's free cash flow already went negative, it has borrowed even more, and its stock fell when the capex guide went up. But Alphabet sells the output of its spending to outside customers, a cloud segment growing 82% with $514 billion under contract, prices other people agreed to pay. Meta's return, if it is there, rests on its own account of better ads, with no segment of its own. The market is discounting both bets, and only one of them can be tracked from outside.