Oracle has turned itself from a database and applications company into one of the largest landlords of AI compute. Revenue in the quarter to August 2026 was $19.35B, up 30%, cloud infrastructure grew 121%, and its remaining performance obligations reached $664B, about 13% of them due within twelve months. The software business underneath still generates cash; the AI build consumes more than all of it. In the same quarter capex was $28.5B and free cash flow was −$5.4B even after $11.4B of customer prepayments, about −$16.8B without them. Debt stood at $125.3B before 2 November, when Oracle raised another $20B: $10B of shares at $116 and $10B of bonds at 7.000% to 8.650%. It also carries about $288B of datacentre lease commitments that start over the next three years, and S&P rates it one notch above junk. A large share of the backlog reportedly sits with OpenAI, and a reported cancellation of a Tencent deal shows that contracted revenue can still move. This is the structure MenFem is bearish on at CoreWeave, at a larger scale, but with a real cash-generating franchise behind it and a share price already more than half below its high. We are WATCHING: the test is whether free cash flow excluding prepayments turns up while the credit rating holds. WATCHING, conviction MEDIUM, one year. The entry is the live price on 6 November. This view was formed by MenFem's research process at Connor's request and adopted by him.
Microsoft: the cloud that is still growing faster than it spends
Azure at 48% growth with a near-50% operating margin and a $677B backlog. Bullish; capex is now outrunning cash, and OpenAI is a big share of revenue.
FY27 Q1: revenue $92.3B (+19%); Azure +48%; operating margin ~50%.
Commercial RPO $677B (+73%).
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