A single post on X by a software engineer has sparked a wide conversation about which companies actually define the tech industry today and the answer, it turns out, is no longer Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google.
From FAANG to MANGO
Back in 2013, Mad Money host Jim Cramer picked four companies he called "totally dominant in their markets", Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google and coined the acronym FANG. In 2017, Apple was added, making it FAANG. The term stuck for over a decade as the go-to shorthand for the biggest names in tech.
But the AI boom has changed the landscape. A new acronym is now going viral: MANGO, which stands for Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, and OpenAI.
How It Started
Software engineer Krishna, known on X as @krishdotdev, posted on June 8: "It's not FAANG anymore. It's MANGO." The post got 2.3 million views in days. Krishna later told Fast Company the idea came from watching these five companies lead the AI revolution and that it "blew up way faster than I expected."
Why These Five Companies
Meta, Nvidia, and Google are among the top five AI companies in the world by market value. Anthropic and OpenAI, both currently private companies, are preparing for stock market listings that could value each at around $1 trillion.
The composition tells its own story. Amazon, Netflix, and Apple, all FAANG staples, are out. Two AI startups have taken their place. Nvidia, which was not part of the original acronym, is now one of the most valuable companies on the planet, driven almost entirely by demand for its chips that power AI systems worldwide.
SpaceX
Krishna himself prefers the version "MANGOS", adding an S for SpaceX, which he says is "contributing vastly in AI." The extended version caught on quickly online. One post called MANGOS "the new world order." Another put it simply: "FAANG hired developers. MANGOS is replacing them."
What the Shift Really Means
The move from FAANG to MANGO reflects something bigger than a catchy acronym. FAANG was built on consumer internet, social media, shopping, streaming, search, and smartphones. MANGO is built on AI, the models, chips, and infrastructure driving the next wave of technology.
Three of the five companies in MANGO, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Nvidia at its current scale, barely registered as major forces when FANG was first coined in 2013.
Whether MANGO will have FAANG's staying power remains to be seen. But what it signals is hard to argue with: the most powerful companies in tech have changed, and the AI era has its own defining players.
