Have they? IBM stock was at it's peak 10 years ago. Sure, now it might seem a bit ludicrous to put MSFT in the same category as IBM, but 10 years ago Microsoft

Have they? IBM stock was at it's peak 10 years ago. Sure, now it might seem a bit ludicrous to put MSFT in the same category as IBM, but 10 years ago Microsoft was far from sexy and not part of what people would imagine would be the future of tech (There is a reason there was no M in FAANG when that term appeared). IBM and MSFT where in the same category back then. Now, since Nadella took over 5 years ago, Microsoft image has completly changed. And over the past 5 years, while all the "FAANG" have increased in value indeed, they have not increased equally. Microsoft has increased the most, even more than Apple. Who would have bet on that? It has grown about 50% faster than Google and 2x faster than Facebook. And when you say that they all have increased in value, their is a strong survivorship bias in there, you are only thinking about those companies that are still performing well today. We forget about Nokia, HP, Blackberry etc. That where big back then, but couldn't transform themselves. Just has everyone predicted Microsoft would not be able to.