Slate Money – "Google Gets Its Bag" (May 2, 2026)
Host: Felix Salmon (Bloomberg)
Guests: Elizabeth Spiers (New York Times), Emily Peck (Axios)
Episode Overview
This episode centers on Google's—technically, Alphabet’s—record-shattering Q1 2026 earnings and their broader implications for tech, AI, the advertising industry, and the media ecosystem. The hosts also discuss Bill Ackman’s latest attempt to create a publicly traded hedge fund, the phenomenon of corporate merch and retreats, and, in the Numbers Round, notable figures from the week in finance and tech.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Google’s Historic Earnings and the Changing Internet Landscape
[03:27–21:42]
- Historic Profit: Alphabet recorded $62 billion in net profit for Q1 2026, shattering all previous corporate records.
- “Never in the history of humanity has any company made this much money in a single quarter. It’s not even close.” — Felix Salmon [03:40]
- AI’s Non-Disruption (Yet):
- Despite popular belief that AI would kill Google’s search business, search revenue actually rose nearly 20% to $60B.
- “If I'm an investor in Google, that's really comforting because... AI is supposed to essentially kill search and search revenue.” — Emily Peck [05:50]
- Ad Revenue & Profitability:
- Even as search becomes more AI-driven (and more expensive), Google shows huge profitability, defying expectations that margins would fall due to LLM costs.
- Metacommentary:
- Meta (Facebook) also had “disappointing” earnings—by which they mean record-breaking profits, but not as high as expected.
- Accounting Quirks:
- A notable chunk of Google’s profits this quarter came from mark-to-market gains on its investment portfolio, leading to skepticism about sustainability.
- “There was a bunch of weird, like, one-off, we have a share portfolio that went up in value by $30 billion or whatever buried inside there.” — Felix Salmon [07:19]
- The ‘Google Zero’ Fear:
- Publishing execs worry that if Google stops sending traffic, original content will die out, threatening both publishers and Google’s own content pipeline.
- “The sort of doomsday scenario... is called Google Zero, where basically everybody resorts to using the AI version of search, and then Google isn't sending any traffic to companies that make original content.” — Elizabeth Spiers [09:04]
- Search Degradation & User Experience:
- Search pages are increasingly dominated by ads and AI-generated answers with questionable reliability.
- “The top search result is objectively worse than it was ten years ago.” — Felix Salmon [11:21]
- “The AI answer… made up an impeachment scenario that happened a couple of months ago.” — Elizabeth Spiers [11:50]
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO):
- Media now explores ways to optimize content for generative AI, not search engines.
- “The buzzword now in media is GEO… Generative engine optimization.” — Emily Peck [13:26]
- Ad Ecosystem & Automation:
- The ad-buying ecosystem is now almost fully automated—robots buy, place, and optimize ads, driving more value (and money) to Google, squeezing out traditional ad sales.
- “You set your robots to work 24/7 buying AdWords... and those robots are competing with each other to basically throw as much money as they can at Google. And Google is loving this.” — Felix Salmon [17:19]
- Media’s New Precarity:
- As Google keeps ad traffic/conversions in-house, publishers lose out—Google “ate the Internet.”
- “They're still making money… It doesn't really matter if you go to axios.com or bloomberg.com… if you stay on Google and you get the information, they could still sell an ad to it.” — Emily Peck [16:48]
Memorable Moment
- The hosts reminisce about the “utopian” early web, then explore how ad dollars, content, and user behaviors migrated through phases dominated by portals, search, social, and now paywalls and AI aggregators. [13:49–15:50]
2. Bill Ackman’s Public Hedge Fund Fumble
[24:59–35:10]
- Ackman’s Venture:
- Ackman wanted to raise $25 billion via a closed-end public hedge fund, giving him “permanent capital.”
- “All they can do is sell their shares to someone else. So that money is his forever. It's permanent capital.” — Felix Salmon [26:42]
- Market Response:
- The reality fell way short—he raised $5 billion, just enough for institutional support, plus some “sweetener.” The fund’s shares immediately traded at a discount.
- Ego vs. Economics:
- “On some level, he doesn't care if it's trading below NAV… He's assessing the fees on the actual money in the fund.” — Felix Salmon [26:35]
- Comparison to Buffett/Berkshire:
- Ackman positions himself as a Buffett-like investor but with much more complexity and less value creation.
- “He keeps on comparing himself to Warren Buffett, but Warren Buffett had one fucking company… and it didn't charge a management fee.” — Felix Salmon [30:18]
- DIY Investing:
- His public holdings allow anyone to duplicate the strategy sans fees.
- “You can totally just replicate the contents of PSUs in your own Robinhood account and not pay Bill Ackman 2% for the privilege.” — Felix Salmon [29:56]
- Track Record:
- Ackman’s fame comes from activist/short-selling, but notable shorts (Herbalife, MBIA) didn’t deliver as hoped—his COVID-19 bond trade was a rare outsized win.
Notable Quote
- “He thought all his followers on X were just going to follow him into the IPO. And… it was like, what, $700 million was retail or something? It was kind of pathetic.” — Felix Salmon [31:10]
3. The Corporate Merch and Retreat Machine
[38:23–46:39]
- Corporate Swag as Status & Branding:
- Corporate-branded apparel—once strictly for employees—is now coveted, collectible, and sometimes sold via limited drops (e.g., Palantir’s $239 ‘chore coat’ sells out in hours).
- “In Silicon Valley, you wear the T-shirt of the band that you’re working for.” — Felix Salmon [39:46]
- Merch as Free Advertising:
- “The merch... is just free advertising for them disguised as a perk for you.” — Elizabeth Spiers [43:28]
- Personal Anecdotes:
- Emily and Felix both admit to stockpiling branded gear mainly because it’s free, not (just) because of company loyalty.
- “I wear some of these garments because I’m too cheap to go out and buy T-shirts.” — Emily Peck [42:13]
- “The single warmest jacket I own is this incredibly high quality North Face jacket... from Reuters.” — Felix Salmon [42:43]
- Corporate Retreats and Forced Fun:
- Many tech/media companies invest heavily in retreats—part teambuilding, part “trauma-bonding” for a hybrid/remote era.
- The WSJ “plex retreat” story is recounted—horror stories include sunburn, fire ants, E. Coli, eating tarantulas, and surprise porcupines.
- “[Retreats] are supposed to be fun for you, but really what they want you to do is trauma bond and then come back closer as a team.” — Elizabeth Spiers [43:28]
- Retreats in a Remote World:
- Such events become more important for company culture when people rarely work in the same physical place.
Memorable Moment
- “At the end... they’re all like, that was the greatest trip I ever took. We still think about it.” — Emily Peck [45:39]
4. Numbers Round
[47:38–52:41]
- Felix: 100.2 – U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio; national debt now exceeds the nation’s annual output.
- “We now have more debt than GDP. This doesn’t in and of itself mean a huge amount, but it’s a nice round number to mark.” — Felix Salmon [47:46]
- Emily: -$7.04 – Negative price for natural gas at the Waha hub in West Texas, a product of oversupply and lack of storage.
- “They have run out of room to store it. So they now have to pay people to take it off their hands.” — Emily Peck [49:33]
- Elizabeth: 1–2 (minutes) – The length of AI-generated Amazon podcasts about product pages, humorously highlighting the rise of AI chatter as content.
- “Amazon… has an AI-generated podcast between two bot hosts who discuss the product.” — Elizabeth Spiers [51:41]
Notable Quotes & Timestamps
- “The number is just too big for my poor human-sized brain.” — Felix Salmon, on Alphabet’s profits [03:51]
- “I'm worried about the whole ecosystem of the Internet.” — Emily Peck [12:19]
- “It like ate the Internet, basically.” — Emily Peck [16:48]
- “All the robots are working out what search terms they want to buy… The amount that's wasted is like 1% because everything is optimized.” — Felix Salmon [17:19]
Timestamps for Key Segments
- Google Earnings Deep-Dive: 03:27–21:42
- Ackman’s Fund Saga: 24:59–35:10
- Corporate Merch/Retreats: 38:23–46:39
- Numbers Round: 47:38–52:41
Overall Tone
Conversational, lightly snarky, and rooted in industry experience, the hosts blend skepticism with self-deprecating anecdotes and a sharp eye for the business mechanics beneath the week’s headlines.
Takeaways
- Tech’s cash machine is stronger than ever, and the ripple effects for the media and content ecosystem are dramatic and in many ways bleak.
- Google’s dominance is tighter, more direct, and less reliant on partners than ever.
- Finance celebrities still try new tricks, but retail excitement doesn’t always materialize.
- The corporate workplace is a strange stew of swag, brand-building, retreat antics, and remote bonding—equal parts marketing strategy and memory-making.
- Beneath it all, automation (both AI content and AI ad buying) is everywhere, changing incentives much faster than business models can keep up.
For listeners wanting an incisive, witty breakdown of this week’s transformative stories in tech, finance, and media, this Slate Money episode doesn’t disappoint.