Jim Cramer and Bob Lang coined FANG back in 2013 based on this criteria:

"Put money to work in the companies that represent the future," he said. "Put money to work in companies that are totally dominant in their markets, and put money to work in stocks that have serious momentum."

https://www.cnbc.com/id/100436754

It's probably included because of the sky-high salaries they offer since FAANG is typically an acronym used to refer to top software companies to work for. From what I've heard from friends, Microsoft typically pays the least out of all the companies that make up the acronym and their technologies are also seen as less trendy than the other companies listed.

I had always heard Apple as the outlier for low salaries, not Microsoft.

https://medium.com/@paysa/tech-salaries-who-pays-more-micros...

That is not the origin of the term. It was coined by Jim Cramer for fast growing stocks.

And before that he had his “four horsemen”: https://www.barrons.com/articles/BL-TB-5933

(Note this article is from Jan of 2008): > In today's trading, all four stocks are down steeply: Apple: Down $26.65, or 17.1%, to $128.99. Amazon: Down $7.56, or 9.6%, to $70.92. Google: Down $48.15, or 8.2%, to $536.20. Research In Motion: Down $8.47, or 9.4%, to $81.61.

Even writing off RIMM to zero would give you a healthy return through 2021.

Is that accounting for splits? Apple (for example) has split 28:1 since that time, making the equivalent price today around 4K/share.

He was quoting the article, but he messed up the formatting so it’s not very obvious that “today” refers to 13 years ago.

That's why Microsoft isn't in the acronym!

MS pays less than Amazon?

How can Microsoft be less trendy if they publish way more research?

Netflix uses(used?) double digit percentages of all internet bandwidth. That's a big player by any metric.

Because FAANG is a cool, somewhat-evil sounding word, and GAFAM is a boring nothing.

Up until the beginning of 2020, NFLX was the highest growing stock of the decade. (Dethroned by TSLA) In terms of percentage growth I believe it still outperforms every other component of FAANG.

it was a originally just FANG with one A. and it was just partially coined because it’s a catchy term. it’s also pretty dated at this point. and if you took the N out it would not be appropriate

The N should be Nvidia

You'd need to add another "A" for AMD.

Netflix pays really well.