AWS

Google Cloud grew 63% year-over-year in Q1 2026. Amazon Web Services posted 28%. Microsoft Azure hit 40%. All three are exceptional. Only one hit 63%.

The divergence is striking. AWS & Azure resell compute. Google bundles compute with its own models. Whether that explains the full gap is unclear, but the structural advantage is not : Google owns Gemini & TPUs top to bottom, with no licensing fees to OpenAI or Anthropic. Its growth may be more profitable too.

Jeff Bezos famously said, “Your margin is my opportunity.”¹ Does this maxim apply in software & AI? Yes.

Software companies maintain 76% gross margins yet earn almost nothing. Sales, marketing, & research & development consume it all.

Among 69 publicly traded B2B software companies, the median net income margin hovers near zero.² Gross margins cluster tightly around 76%, yet almost none of that profit flows to the bottom line.