Google shares plunged in New York on Thursday after parent company Alphabet reported its first-ever negative free cash flow as a public firm, despite posting a record quarterly profit of $112 billion fuelled largely by paper gains on its investments in other tech and AI companies.
The shock figures, released in Alphabet's latest earnings report, have sharpened questions over how much of Google's AI boom is built on solid ground and how much is riding on a frothy market that could yet deflate.
