Welcome to Staten News — where three cloud scoreboards dropped in 48 hours and only one of them got a standing ovation.
Google Cloud did $30.7 billion in revenue last quarter. A year ago it did $15.2 billion.
That's not a growth rate. That's a different company.
☁️ The scoreboard
All three big clouds reported between Wednesday and Thursday. Here's the September quarter, side by side:
AWS: $46.0 billion, up 39%
Microsoft Azure: $33.2 billion, up 48%
Google Cloud: $30.7 billion, up 103%
AWS is still the biggest by a mile, and 39% growth on a $46 billion base is the fastest it has grown in a long time. Azure is doing exactly what Microsoft needs it to do. Google is the one that changed shape.
A year ago, Google Cloud was about two-thirds the size of Azure ($15.2 billion against $22.4 billion). Now it's within $2.5 billion. The three don't define "cloud revenue" the same way, so treat this as a scoreboard, not an audit. But the gap that used to separate the big two from Google is basically gone.
If those growth rates hold for even a couple more quarters, Google passes Azure. That's our math, not a forecast anyone at either company has made.
💸 The bill that came with it
Here's the catch. The cloud race runs on data centers, and data centers run on cash.
Alphabet spent $51.4 billion on capex in the quarter and posted negative free cash flow. Microsoft spent $39.4 billion on property and equipment, double a year ago. Amazon's trailing-twelve-month free cash flow is now an outflow of $42.4 billion.
Our Finance desk has the stock damage today. The short version: Wall Street paid up for Azure and sold the other two. Same strategy, three different report cards, and the grade came down to whether the revenue shows up as fast as the spending.
💻 Apple put its finger on the screen
Steve Jobs once called a touchscreen Mac "ergonomically terrible." Apple shipped one anyway.
The new MacBook Pro with a PROLED XDR display comes in 14-inch ($2,899) and 16-inch ($3,399) versions, with M5 Pro or M5 Max chips, up to 128GB of memory and up to 16TB of storage. The screen hits 2,000 nits, and Apple redesigned the hinge so the display doesn't wobble when you tap it. Preorders open today. It ships Nov. 6.
Look at the price ladder. Apple also announced a standard 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M6 chip the day before, starting at $1,999. Touch starts $900 higher, on a different chip, which tells you Apple is selling it as a pro feature, not the new default.
Windows laptops have had touchscreens for over a decade. Apple isn't trying to win that argument. It's betting the display is good enough that people stop asking why it took so long.
🛒 DoorDash buys the grocery aisle
DoorDash agreed Thursday to buy Instacart for $65 a share, about $17 billion in equity value. That's a 26% premium to Instacart's Oct. 22 close, the last trading day before deal reports surfaced. At least 75% of it is cash, backed by a JPMorgan bridge loan.
The closing date is the tell. DoorDash expects this to wrap at the end of 2027 or in the first half of 2028, and it needs U.S. antitrust clearance plus approvals in Canada and Israel. Nobody budgets 14 months or more for a deal they think regulators will wave through.
DoorDash says it will keep the Instacart brand, its app and its enterprise tech, the software grocers use to run delivery on their own sites. That last piece is the real prize. The consumer app gets the headlines. The grocer software gets DoorDash inside the store.
Who sweats? Uber Eats, which now faces one combined giant in restaurant and grocery delivery. And honestly? Amazon too, since it has spent years trying to make grocery delivery stick.
🎯 What it adds up to
This is the week the AI story split in two: the companies that can show the revenue, and the companies still asking for patience. Google can show the revenue. It just can't show the cash yet.
Next up: Apple reports Monday, and the touchscreen Mac starts landing on desks Nov. 6.
Sources: Microsoft FY27 Q1 earnings release, Stock Titan Alphabet Q3 breakdown, TechCrunch on the touchscreen MacBook Pro, DoorDash-Instacart announcement (SEC filing)
— The Bandicoots ☁️💻🛒