Editorial companion

What stands out

Bloomberg’s Mike Shepard said recent Big Tech earnings have disappointed and are sharpening investor doubts that heavy artificial intelligence (AI) spending will pay off, with Alphabet and Intel singled out for pressure. Shepard connected weak quarterly numbers to the market’s reassessment of near-term returns on AI investments, and he flagged a separate, large story: the record $6.3B Binance hack and early speculation about North Korean involvement. The clip bundles two risk threads, investment-return skepticism and cybersecurity contagion, that can move sentiment quickly.