How some of the world’s biggest tech companies stacked up during earnings season

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Happy Halloween! Keep an eye out for AI-inspired costumes tonight. (Just good luck trying to automate trick-or-treating!)

In case you missed it, I had a fantastic discussion with Eugene Kim and Aki Ito yesterday about the Amazon layoffs and its wider impact across corporate America. Luckily, you can watch a replay of the whole discussion here.

In today’s big story, tech earnings have finally wrapped. Here’s what you need to know.

What’s on deck:

Markets: The former McKinsey executive who is Zohran Mamdani’s bridge to NYC’s C-suite.

Tech: Who got rich from Navan’s IPO?

Business: The era of the never-ending layoff might be here.

But first, give me the CliffNotes.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The big story

TLDR for tech earnings

If you blinked, you might have missed it.

Earnings season hit Big Tech, and there’s a lot to unpack. (And a lot of AI spending going on.) Five of the world’s most important companies provided updates on their businesses over the course of two days.

To quickly catch you up on how things shook out, here’s a rundown on the main takeaways from Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.

But first, a quick plug for my colleague Alistair Barr’s newsletter. Tech Memo is a must-subscribe if you even have a slight interest in the industry, so do yourself a favor and click here.

Ok, let’s dive in.

Alphabet: Hot on ChatGPT’s heels.

Look out, OpenAI. Here comes Gemini. Google’s chatbot now has 650 million monthly active users. That’s about a 44% jump from just a few months ago.

Sure, it still trails the behemoth that is ChatGPT, which has a staggering 800 million weekly active users. But the growth shows Gemini is building momentum, and especially with the youths.

Josh Woodward, the VP of Google Labs who leads the Gemini app, told BI’s Hugh Langley there has been a big demographic shift to younger users. That’s thanks to its viral image editor Nano Banana.

Microsoft: Spend, spend, spend.

Spending big on AI infrastructure was already a massive theme in tech heading into earnings, and Microsoft certainly didn’t stray from the path. An internal memo from CFO Amy Hood seen by BI’s Ashley Stewart highlighted the company’s record $34.9 billion infrastructure spending to meet AI demand this quarter.

Investors aren’t necessarily buying it, as concerns are growing about whether all this money will lead to some ROI.

Meta: Oh, you think that’s a lot of tech spending? Hold my beer.

Meta has never shied away from its intent to spend big on AI. That proved true this week when it bumped its estimate for infrastructure spend this year to between $70 billion and $72 billion. The number raised plenty of questions for Mark Zuckerberg.

Perhaps his answers didn’t land quite the right way. Meta’s stock tumbled more than 11% on Thursday.

Meta’s commitment to AI is clear, but loyalty to a trend is a fickle thing at the tech giant. Remember the good old metaverse? It got zero mentions from Meta executives on Wednesday’s call.

Apple: Big trouble in China.

The iPhone maker delivered an earnings beat, with revenue growing 8% year over year.

However, things weren’t so bright in China, an important market for Apple. Revenue was actually down compared to a year ago, and it’s not like 2024 was a banner year for Apple in the country either.

Amazon: Layoffs? What layoffs?

Only a few days removed from cutting 14,000 corporate employees, Amazon reported some big wins in earnings. There was huge growth, particularly when it came to its somewhat beleaguered cloud unit.

As for those layoffs, CEO Andy Jassy offered some clarity about the motivation. According to Jassy, it wasn’t about AI or even cost savings. It was because they didn’t fit the culture, he said.

3 things in markets

1. Meet Zohran Mamdani’s CEO whisperer. Former McKinsey executive and Ayn Rand fan Yasser Salem has become the democratic socialist candidate’s bridge to New York’s C-suite. Salem hopes to turn skeptics into partners and told BI that he has met with over 70 CEOs to discuss their concerns.

2. Hedge funds are on track for a banner year. Despite an array of macroeconomic headwinds, the industry is set to have its best annual showing since the pandemic, according to fund administrator Citco. Multistrategy funds are leading the way, with an average return of 19.3%.

3. JPMorgan wants everyone in its 300,000 workforce to become AI pros. America’s biggest bank is rolling out a firmwide AI training push, but it’ll affect different workers in different ways, chief analytics officer Derek Waldron said in an interview with McKinsey. The multi-pronged strategy is helping people get comfortable, he said.

3 things in tech

1. Navan finally makes its (public) debut. The travel and expense management company has become the largest to test the IPO waters during a government shutdown. BI calculated the numbers — and these are the big VC winners.

2. Use AI, but don’t depend on it. Many bosses are encouraging workers to lean in on AI, but some are also worried workers could forget how to do their jobs without it.

3. AI is starting to take a bite out of Wikipedia’s traffic. Wiki reported its traffic is down 8% in the last few months when compared to the same time last year, and AI summaries and chatbots that aggregate its data are largely to blame. BI’s Katie Notopoulos explores whether Wikipedia is in trouble or not.

3 things in business

1. The world’s most important economic relationship just got a reset. Donald Trump and Xi Jinping emerged from their first IRL meeting in six years with warmth and progress. Beneath the diplomatic niceties, three major business takeaways stood out.

2. The rise of the rolling layoff. Companies like Amazon and Paramount Skydance have conducted multiple rounds of layoffs recently, leaving some employees relieved that they held onto their jobs but fearing they might be next. That can be pretty bad for morale and productivity. Here’s why companies do it anyway.

3. Slop bowl stocks slump. Chipotle’s stock fell 18% missing consensus Q3 revenue estimates. The fast-food chain revealed a significant decline in customer traffic among Gen Z and millennials, which prompted a reduced outlook. Competitors Sweetgreen and Cava also saw their stocks fall.

In other news

• Travel nightmare across the northeast as severe weather causes hundreds of flight cancellations and delays.
• The golden age of the AI prankster has arrived.
• Palantir sues ex-engineers at new AI startup backed by General Catalyst, claiming they stole its ‘crown jewels.’
• Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon: The bank hasn’t made enough progress in hiring women.
• OpenAI could go public next year at a $1 trillion valuation.
• I made over $26 million in the last 8 years, but I lost friends along the way. It’s taken time to learn who I can trust.
• A detail in this photo of Jensen Huang having fried chicken with the heads of Samsung and Hyundai shows the extent of his tech celebrity.

What’s happening today

• Energy companies ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Dominion report earnings.
• Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting of representatives from 21 member states, including the US, China, Japan, and Russia

Dan DeFrancesco, deputy executive editor and anchor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Akin Oyedele, deputy editor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in New York. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York.