Cyril Reze"FAANG" is a popular acronym that refers to the stocks of five prominent American technology companies: Meta (formerly known as Facebook), Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet (formerly known as Google).
The term FANG was coined by Bob Lang (of Explosive Options) with commentator Jim Cramer (host of Mad Money on CNBC), in 2013, who praised these companies for being “totally dominant in their markets”.
Read: https://www.cnbc.com/id/100436754
Lang tells the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMEfOg0mowA
Originally, the term "FANG" was used, with Apple (the second “A” in the acronym) added in 2017.
With Meta and Alphabet coming along, time for a new acronym...
Mana in its traditional sense means power, authority, ownership, status, influence...
In Melanesian and Polynesian culture, mana is the spiritual life force energy or healing power that permeates the universe. Anyone or anything can have mana. It is a cultivation or possession of energy and power, rather than being a source of power. It is an intentional force.
And māna has some obvious pictorial meaning when speaking about companies that are totally dominant in their markets.
In Māori culture, there are two essential aspects of a person's mana: mana tangata, authority derived from whakapapa (genealogy) and mana huaanga, defined as "authority derived from having a wealth of resources to gift to others to bind them into reciprocal obligations".
Some of you may work for one of those companies.
So?
Do you have maana?
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Illustrations by Cyril Rezé
