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Zoho told staff there is no pay rise this year because AI made servers cost four times more. The only Zoho results in this record show a profit of Rs 3,191.5 crore, and no figure for what AI costs.

A shut pay window with a NOT THIS YEAR sign, a server rack with a 4X price tag, and a ledger beside a tall stack of coins.
AI illustration

Sridhar Vembu said AI has raised costs dramatically, with server prices up 4-fold, so Zoho staff get no usual pay rise this year.

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BS Killer is published by Inferno Tech Pty Ltd, ABN 27 647 413 474.

Open the evidence4 source pages

The claim we checked

The business outlook for software is uncertain and AI has raised costs dramatically with a massive 4-fold increase in server prices, so Zoho employees cannot have their usual pay increase this year.

These are quoted receipts, not a count of independent investigations. Several reports may rely on the same original source.

x.com ↗
massive 4-fold increase in server prices which we need for data centers
english.gujaratsamachar.com ↗
We have told our employees that we cannot have our usual pay increase this year
english.gujaratsamachar.com ↗
the outlook for software jobs in general is grim
greatandhra.com ↗
I have apologised for not being able to avoid this
greatandhra.com ↗
Zoho has not increased its employee count for the past 18 months
greatandhra.com ↗
Vembu said the company has also reduced its marketing budget as part of efforts to control costs.
medianama.com ↗
operating revenue of Rs 12,313 crore
medianama.com ↗
net profit declined by more than 3% to Rs 3,191.5 crore
medianama.com ↗
total expenditure rose 30.5% to Rs 9216.6 crore in FY25 from Rs 7,061.6 crore in FY24
medianama.com ↗
Employee Costs: Jumped to Rs 4,347.2 crore, up 29% YoY
medianama.com ↗
Advertising and Promotional Expenses: Rose to Rs 2,230.3 crore, up 31% YoY
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The idea, illustrated01

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    The full explanation appears when your reading access is confirmed.
    Next: The outlier ran for 22 days

    OpenAI called its Hugging Face breach an unprecedented cyber incident, then a rare outlier. Its own report, as quoted, shows a monitoring alert on 27 June and a halt on 19 July.

    A lab tank with a pinhole leak, a ringing alarm bell ignored by a technician with tea, and a calendar with many torn pages.
    AI illustration

    OpenAI called the Hugging Face breach an unprecedented cyber incident and, in its report, misaligned behavior in an outlier scenario.

    Members · 30 days free

    See what the evidence actually shows.

    Members read the full check on every story: what the evidence shows, why it matters to you and the one line to take with you. Every past edition, re-verified, and the Receipts Pack come with it. A$89 a year, about A$0.24 a day.

    1. At sign-up: 30 days free. Payment card required. One introductory trial per customer.
    2. Your trial ends 30 days after you start. Unless you cancel before then in Account → Manage subscription, we charge A$89 for the first year. It renews automatically at A$89/yr until cancelled.
    3. You can ask for a full refund within 14 days after any annual payment, renewals included, with no reason needed, by emailing hello@bskiller.com. This voluntary refund does not limit your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

    By starting your trial, you agree to the Terms.

    BS Killer is published by Inferno Tech Pty Ltd, ABN 27 647 413 474.

    Open the evidence6 source pages

    The claim we checked

    OpenAI described its Hugging Face breach as "an unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities," and its report calls it misaligned behavior in an outlier scenario.

    These are quoted receipts, not a count of independent investigations. Several reports may rely on the same original source.

    csoonline.com ↗
    an unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities
    thezvi.substack.com ↗
    This incident reflects misaligned behavior in an outlier scenario involving a rare and unexpected confluence of events
    huggingface.co ↗
    driven, end to end, by an autonomous AI agent system
    csoonline.com ↗
    Anthropic revealed that one of its models gained unauthorized access to the production infrastructure of three organizations
    csoonline.com ↗
    there literally was a hole that was exploited because it was not configured correctly on the containment side
    csoonline.com ↗
    It’s not rocket science to isolate one of these AI things.
    csoonline.com ↗
    went on for days, and nobody noticed
    thezvi.substack.com ↗
    An internal team observed an agent engaging in message board activity and instances of disallowed internet access as early as late May
    thezvi.substack.com ↗
    On June 27, a cybersecurity monitoring tool alerted OpenAI to port sweep activity within the research environment.
    thezvi.substack.com ↗
    the on-call response staff advised that stopping the evaluation run was not required
    thezvi.substack.com ↗
    On July 19, OpenAI noticed suspicious internal activity, halted the cyber evals and started a broader investigation.
    bnnbloomberg.ca ↗
    Multiple organizations have disclosed high-profile security failures: their AI models bypassed insufficiently sandboxed environments to compromise the systems of external organizations
    bnnbloomberg.ca ↗
    strong sandboxing mechanisms including airgapping (disconnecting from the internet) should be used to provide high-assurance containment of cyber-capable AI models
    projectdiscovery.io ↗
    What happened was narrower, agents chasing scores, drifting on the reward, not on intent
    labs.cloudsecurityalliance.org ↗
    the models identified and chained vulnerabilities across OpenAI’s research environment and Hugging Face’s production infrastructure
    Open this check in the full collection →
    The idea, illustrated02

    Go inside the check.

      The full explanation appears when your reading access is confirmed.
      Next: Backlog up, banks selling

      Oracle reports $638 billion of AI backlog. The banks that lent to build it spent six months or more placing a $38 billion slice, some at a discount.

      Bankers passing a heavy sack with a discount tag in front of a tall wall of glowing contracts.
      AI illustration

      Oracle says its RPO and revenue growth is driven by AI demand, with RPO at $638 billion.

      Members · 30 days free

      See what the evidence actually shows.

      Members read the full check on every story: what the evidence shows, why it matters to you and the one line to take with you. Every past edition, re-verified, and the Receipts Pack come with it. A$89 a year, about A$0.24 a day.

      1. At sign-up: 30 days free. Payment card required. One introductory trial per customer.
      2. Your trial ends 30 days after you start. Unless you cancel before then in Account → Manage subscription, we charge A$89 for the first year. It renews automatically at A$89/yr until cancelled.
      3. You can ask for a full refund within 14 days after any annual payment, renewals included, with no reason needed, by emailing hello@bskiller.com. This voluntary refund does not limit your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

      By starting your trial, you agree to the Terms.

      BS Killer is published by Inferno Tech Pty Ltd, ABN 27 647 413 474.

      Open the evidence4 source pages

      The claim we checked

      Oracle says the large increases in its RPO and revenue are driven by growing demand for cloud infrastructure for AI training and inferencing, with RPO at $638 billion.

      These are quoted receipts, not a count of independent investigations. Several reports may rely on the same original source.

      oracle.com ↗
      The large increases in Oracle's RPO and revenue are driven by the growing demand for cloud infrastructure for AI training and inferencing.
      oracle.com ↗
      Remaining Performance Obligations, or RPO, ended the quarter at $638 billion, up 363% USD year-over-year
      oracle.com ↗
      Free cash flow was negative $23.7 billion for fiscal year 2026
      oracle.com ↗
      In fiscal year 2026, Oracle raised $43 billion in debt financing and $5 billion in equity financing.
      oracle.com ↗
      Oracle does not expect to issue additional debt in calendar year 2026.
      silicon.co.uk ↗
      have reportedly spent more than six months distributing $38 billion
      silicon.co.uk ↗
      distributing $38 billion (£28bn) of construction debt tied to a data centre project in Texas and Wisconsin leased to Oracle
      silicon.co.uk ↗
      with some banks seeking to sell the loans at a discount to non-bank lenders
      silicon.co.uk ↗
      Banks are reportedly approaching risk limits that restrict their exposure to individual borrowers or sectors
      silicon.co.uk ↗
      out of scale to anything we’ve thought about, ever
      aiweekly.co ↗
      after more than two dozen banks and investors joined
      aiweekly.co ↗
      lenders are still looking to offload less than $1 billion
      aiweekly.co ↗
      to non-bank buyers at a discount, just to move it
      aiweekly.co ↗
      Oracle's corporate credit rating sits one notch above junk following a July S&P downgrade
      aiweekly.co ↗
      Wells Fargo, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, Sumitomo Mitsui and Societe Generale were allocated portions
      startupfortune.com ↗
      JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, SMBC and MUFG have been exploring significant risk transfers, according to a report from the Financial Times
      startupfortune.com ↗
      because they are bumping up against internal limits on how much AI-linked exposure any one lender can hold
      startupfortune.com ↗
      Order books for their offerings have shrunk from roughly five times the amount on sale back in February to under two times by July
      Open this check in the full collection →
      The idea, illustrated03

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        The full explanation appears when your reading access is confirmed.
        The finish line

        Edition complete

        You’re up to speed.

        That’s the 15 Oct 2026 briefing. Keep the useful bits. Leave the noise.

        Reading estimate: 581 words at 200 words per minute. Source quotes and the optional sections below add reading time.

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