We split the risk-factor sections of nine filings into 382 risk factors and 196,067 words: the latest annual reports of Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Oracle, Tesla and CoreWeave, plus Anthropic’s S-1. Leaving aside a catch-all Other group, cyber, safety and outage risks get the most words in 4 of the 9, by our count.
Microsoft gives that theme 30.0% of its risk-factor words, the highest share of any of the nine. Power and energy, as a stand-alone theme, gets 0.3% of all the words, our arithmetic.
Business Pill · Capex and Depreciation Explained
A short explainer on capital spending and depreciation. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about these filings.
The key insight: By our count, nine filings spread their largest risk theme across four different themes, and the four changed risk factors we highlight sit on spending, compute supply, agents and infrastructure.
Share of each company’s Item 1A risk-factor words by theme, latest 10-K (Anthropic: S-1). One theme per risk factor, our classification; word counts are our arithmetic.
Cyber, safety and outages is the largest theme, leaving aside a catch-all Other group, at Alphabet, Microsoft, Oracle and Anthropic. Legal, antitrust and tax is largest at Amazon and Apple, where it takes 18.3% and 28.0% of the words.
AI regulation and policy is largest at Meta, at 19.3%, and at Tesla, at 16.5%. At CoreWeave, the largest theme is capex, financing and credit, at 9.5%.
Pooled across all nine filings, cyber, safety and outages has 25,283 words, or 12.9%. Legal, antitrust and tax follows with 10.0% and competition with 9.5%, our arithmetic.
Each risk factor gets one theme in our method, so a risk factor that covers chips, power and data centres together counts once. Anthropic’s longest risk factor, 4,066 words on chips, electrical power and data-centre capacity, sits under compute and supply chain.
That is why power and energy shows 623 words in total. Read the power share as the words in risk factors that are mainly about power, not every mention of it.
Three Risk Factors That Grew by More Than Half
Body words in the same risk factor, latest 10-K vs latest 10-Q. Word counts are our arithmetic on Item 1A, headings excluded.
Meta’s risk factor on the cost of its AI and Reality Labs investments grew from 456 words in its 2025 annual report to 736 in its September-quarter report, up 61%, by our count. Its heading now says the investments reduce Meta’s “cash flows, operating margin and profitability”.
Apple’s supply risk factor grew from 279 to 542 words, up 94%, in its June-quarter report. Its heading now reads “obtain components and computing resources in sufficient quantities”; the annual report’s heading named components only.
Alphabet’s AI-issues risk factor grew from 201 to 350 words, up 74%. The new text adds AI agents, which we covered separately.
Microsoft’s annual report for the year to June 2026 added a risk factor headed “We may be unable to develop and expand adequate infrastructure”, at 805 words. The prior year’s closest risk factor, on outages from inadequate operations infrastructure, had 297 words, by our count.
How We Counted
We took Item 1A from each filing on the SEC’s EDGAR system, split it into risk factors by heading and counted the body words, headings excluded. A Claude model assigned each heading to one of 12 themes or Other, and we report each theme’s share of the filing’s words.
Oracle’s and Tesla’s latest quarterly reports refer back to their annual reports and restate no risk factors. Intel is left out because its filing layout did not split reliably. CoreWeave’s latest quarterly report covers the quarter to 30 June 2026.
The Business Lever: Disclosure as a Map of Exposure
As we read the heatmap, the nine filings do not share one top risk: their largest themes spread across four different themes, by our count.
As we read the changes, the risk factors that grew this year sit on the AI build-out: spending and financing at Meta, compute supply at Apple, agents at Alphabet and infrastructure at Microsoft.
The Structural Read
As we read the heatmap, cyber, safety and outage risks lead at Alphabet, Microsoft, Oracle and Anthropic, while legal and antitrust risks lead at Amazon and Apple.
As we read Meta’s change, the cost-of-investment risk factor now names cash flows in its heading and grew to 736 words, from 456 in the annual report, by our count.
As we read Apple’s change, the supply risk factor now names computing resources next to components and nearly doubled in length, by our count.
Microsoft Form 10-K, Risk Factors (heading)
“We may be unable to develop and expand adequate infrastructure”
Three Implications
FOR READING MICROSOFT Cyber, safety and outage risks take 30.0% of its risk-factor words, the highest share of the nine filings, by our count.
FOR READING META Its AI and Reality Labs spending risk factor grew 61% between the annual report and the September-quarter report.
FOR READING POWER Power-led risk factors total 623 words across nine filings; Anthropic’s 4,066-word risk factor on chips, power and data centres counts under compute.
The framework states: “The thesis: the capex race is no longer a corporate spending cycle.”
As we read it, the risk sections show that shift in the companies’ own legal language: Meta’s spending risk factor now names debt and its credit rating, and Microsoft added a risk factor on expanding infrastructure. The framework is the owner’s argument and does not discuss these filings.
Word counts measure emphasis in a legal document; they say nothing about probability or severity. Length can also reflect drafting choices rather than business weight.
Theme shares depend on our classification, which puts each risk factor in one theme. The filings cover different periods, from Apple’s year to September 2025 to Microsoft’s year to June 2026, and Anthropic’s S-1 was filed on 26 October 2026.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
Anthropic’s Reality Check, The Capital Squeeze, & The New World Order
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a growthstory. This week it started being priced as a credit story.
Across 382 risk factors in nine filings, cyber, safety and outage risks are the largest named theme in 4, and Microsoft gives them 30.0% of its section, by our count. Three risk factors at Meta, Apple and Alphabet grew by 61% to 94% between the annual and latest quarterly reports.
A note on sourcing. All figures come from the companies’ Forms 10-K, 10-Q and (Anthropic) S-1 as filed with the SEC. Risk-factor counts, word counts, theme shares and changes are our arithmetic; themes are our classification, one per risk factor. This is not investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
