Ruth Porat rebuts Chris Wood's AI capital-destruction call

The debate arrives as Alphabet's own spending has more than doubled year over year, and as debt increasingly funds the broader AI buildout. Porat speaks from experience watching prior bubbles, having led Morgan Stanley's technology banking team during the dot-com era and advised during the 2008 financial crisis.

Wood's warning draws on a shift in the competitive landscape: open-weight models, particularly from China, are taking business from closed models, and new Anthropic figures suggest its growth may have flattened. When asked about this trend, Porat said AI companies that add differentiated value will find customers paying regardless.

Porat's lesson from past crises is to identify and fortify against a company's greatest vulnerability early. For her, that vulnerability today is innovation—if competitors connect with customers using AI and you do not, you are at a disadvantage. Alphabet, she indicated, will keep investing heavily for long-term growth, arguing that by the time you need it, it is too late to start.