What are “FAANG” and "Big N" companies all about?

Sometimes, we feel missed out on interesting tech trends. Hoping from Reddit to twitter down to Quora to figure out what these trends are and why the buzz. One such trend is the “BN” company. If you’re feeling missed out already, the “BN” company is what we already know, just that, the internet knows how to “teach” us what we already know differently ⁠— in their terms. These “BN” companies are the most notable technology companies you can think of. At this point, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, etc. might have crossed your mind. You’re right, they’re the “BN” companies. There are at least 500 of them, called the 500 fortune companies.

Almost everyone talks about them, they have the highest paying job, mostly a public trading company or about to go public. Every career-focused talent has probably at a one-point dream of landing a job with any of them for obvious reasons. Employees at the so-called "big N" companies seem to have the best work-life balance, unlike freelancers, and the best employee benefits in the industry. So, for them, joining a startup almost invariably means taking a pay cut. Because of this, when they leave one “big N” company, it’s typically to move to another tech giant that offers almost the same compensation. Anyone leaving to join a startup or to found one is mostly for personal reasons like wanting to work in a workplace where they can have a better impact, a chance to influence new cutting edge technologies or to be an early employee with some equity stake at the next (hopefully) tech giant.

 

“Big N” companies and FAANG are not the same but there is a mix here. Out of the 500 fortune companies, FAANG stood out mostly because of their stocks. They have the most well-known and best-performing tech stocks and they’re just five; FB, AMZN, AAPL, Netflix, and, GOOG owned by Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Alphabet respectively.

 

It is believed that Investors grouped these companies into one acronym to capture the collective impact that these companies have on the markets. As of March 2019, the market capitalization of these companies was equal to $3.1 trillion. FAANG’s root boils down to FANG ⁠— it’s original acronym when CNBC’s Jim Cramer came up with the term in Feb 2013. This was before the A for Apple came on board. "Put money to work in the companies that represent the future," Cramer told audiences. "Put money to work in companies that are dominant in their markets, and put money to work in stocks that have serious momentum." Cramer's call on FANG minted profits for investors. Morningstar, one of the top research firm calculated that the original four companies, excluding Apple, in the acronym had earned 691% in profits for investors between June 2013 to August 2018.

 

While they rank up in trillions of dollars, one might believe they had it all figured out. None of them do.