It’s not just yield. Its debt gets paid first. And if you miss the interest payments the debt holders get the company.

If you mean that taking out any kind of debt is fundamentally a bet that whatever is being put up as collateral will grow faster than the interest rate? Because if it doesn't the risk that suddenly debt holders control you grows by a lot. Yes, absolutely.

So, applied to GOOG, Alphabet Management is betting they will grow more than 4.5% per year at least until 2030.

There is also some weirdness, like Alphabet making a 500 million USD bet short term USD interest rates will be lower than 4% over the 2025-2028 period.