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Why the N in FAANG? Why isn't it FAAMG? I can't get a reasonable answer to this.
by idlewords 7y ago
Why the N in FAANG? Why isn't it FAAMG? I can't get a reasonable answer to this.
- thrower123 7y agoIsn't the N Netflix? I think it's just Bay Area/Silicon Valley companies, while Microsoft is up north in Washington.
- idlewords 7y agoYeah, N is netflix, but in this context what's being referred to is the Big 5 tech companies, which should be Google|Alphabet/Amazon/Microsoft/Facebook/Apple. I think the original FAANG formulation had to do with fastest-growing stocks and now it's infected the discourse about the tech oligopoly. Other theories welcome.
- nostrademons 7y agoYeah, I think it has to do with stock price appreciation. Since 2009, Google has grown 7x, Apple 9x, FB was non-public but a rough private market valuation gives about 9x, Amazon 32X, and Netflix 70X. MSFT has grown 5x, but 2x of that is since 2017 and virtually all of it since 2015 (while FB started its rally in 2013 and the rest in 2009), so it's been left out of the discourse. Personally, I'm a fan of the acronym MAGA for the top tech companies, because that's the initials of the largest 4 (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple) and they are Making America Great Again, with multiple levels of irony that your personal political views and historical knowledge can help you unpack.
- kevinmchugh 7y agoYou've also pointed out that FAANG is outdated, so I'm switching to FAAAM
- idlewords 7y agoThis is like a scrabble game where we're waiting for more companies that start with a consonant to hit a 1T valuation.
- tptacek 7y agoYeah I have no clue. I'm partial to Patrick's "AmaGooBookSoft" but then you're leaving out Apple.
- patio11 7y agoI think I switched to AppAmaGooBookSoft in ~2015.
- csa 7y agoFWIW, I think you started it as AmaGooFaceSoft, then AppAmaGooFaceSoft[1], then AppAmaGooBookSoft. I personally prefer the AppAmaGooFaceSoft over the ...BookSoft version. Based on the fact that I can say the above with a small amount of authority, I think it's safe to say that I have read too much of your stuff....... [1]The Blue Googles confirms that you used AppAmaGooFaceSoft as well. I prefer it and use it not infrequently.
- electroly 7y agoMy assumption: because people really want it to sound like a real word, but dropping the "N" makes a very unfortunate cognate with an offensive English term, and "FAAMG" doesn't sound like a real word. Netflix is just there to avoid what "FAANG" would be without it.