Insider Today: Big Tech battle royale

Welcome back to our Sunday edition, a roundup of some of our top stories. We’re into the final hours before election day. Tens of millions of Americans have already voted.

Business Insider will be covering this final stretch and the days that follow with a sharp focus on what the next president will mean for you. From the prices you pay to how to invest, we’ll have you covered.

And if you’re looking for a break from politics, we’ll also continue to bring you all of the most important stories in business. You can find it all on our homepage or on our app.

On the agenda today:

But first: Takeaways from a big week in Big Tech.

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All about AI, all the time

The trillion-dollar giants of Big Tech reported earnings this week, beating estimates and committing billions to AI. The big winners: Those able to signal a strong return on that investment.

Alphabet

Google’s cloud business benefited from AI adoption, posting a 35% year-over-year increase in revenues, while CEO Sundar Pichai said more than a quarter of the company’s new code is now created by AI. The core advertising business held strong despite growing competition from the likes of OpenAI, Reddit, and more.

Amazon

The retail and cloud giant smashed expectations, sending the stock soaring on Friday. It also benefited from AI adoption, as cloud unit AWS posted a 19% increase in revenues. A strong performance in retail, where execs said shoppers were buying cheaper items at higher volumes, and a sharp focus on cost control had investors cheering.

Apple

Apple beat revenue and profit estimates overall, but a year-over-year decline in revenue in China left investors underwhelmed. All eyes are now on demand for the iPhone 16 and whether new Apple Intelligence features help juice sales.

Meta

Meta beat estimates, though user growth came in below expectations. Mark Zuckerberg promised to keep spending on AI and flexed Meta’s huge cluster of Nvidia H100 chips.

Microsoft

Microsoft also beat estimates, but concerns around capacity constraints in AI and the return on its investments in the space led the tech giant’s stock lower across the week.

Inside “Project Rodeo”

In preparation for its future of autonomous vehicles, Tesla has been leaning on a specialized group of test drivers, part of what’s known internally as “Project Rodeo.”

BI spoke with nine test drivers, who described sometimes perilous scenarios and near-crashes while testing unreleased software.

Here’s what they said.

Rethinking corporate careerism

Scaling the corporate ladder was once a cornerstone of the American dream. Now, 42% of Americans say they don’t even want a promotion, according to a survey by global HR consultancy Randstad.

That’s higher than the countries known for being more chill about work, like Italy, Spain, and New Zealand. The anti-advancement shift has left bosses scratching their heads. If promotions won’t motivate workers, what will?

Packing up the corporate ladder.

The disappearing tech freebies

After years of upping the ante with everything from exercise classes to laundry services, tech companies are clamping down on freebies. It’s part of a wider push to cut costs across the industry.

The lavish perks culture, once aimed at subsidizing nearly everything, led to entitlement and rule-bending among some employees. In a new era of efficiency and layoffs, tech workers need to get used to a new, non-extravagant normal.

Use it, don’t abuse it.

A Pacific-theater practice round

As tension builds in the Indo-Pacific region, the United States Army is training warfighters for combat if a conflict with China breaks out.

BI’s Graham Flanagan spent two weeks in Hawaii to document the Army’s sprawling, $16 million war-games exercise across the island chain.

Watch the documentary here.

This week’s quote:

“We were appalled to hear the non-data-driven explanation you gave for Amazon imposing a 5-day in-office mandate.”

— Amazon employees in a signed letter to AWS CEO Matt Garman, protesting his return-to-office comments.

More of this week’s top reads: