Ask HN: Which company is the 4th of the Big-4?

5 points by bsvalley ↗ HN
We've all heard of the "Big 4", in reference to the most praised companies in Tech. Apple, Google, Facebook, ?? Which one is the 4th one? Just curious.

5 comments

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Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook
Interesting, I would equate the big four to Apple, Microsoft Google and Amazon (in no particular order)

I would not consider facebook to be in their realm, more in the realm of things like twitter. influential but not foundational in my opinion. thoughts?

I agree the original list (microsoft, facebook, google, amazon) is outdated. Hard to ignore a company like Apple. I would put FB in it because every single CS student wants to work at FB.

Microsoft shouldn't be in the list anymore since it became an enterprise company like Oracle/Salesforce. Not hot anymore. Same for Amazon, I don't think they should be in the list, people don't really dream about this company anymore with all the bad press they got from their employees.

I would probably put SpaceX? Apple, Google, FB and Space X?

The makeup of the "big 4" depends on who you're talking to. The phrase is borrowed from accounting, where there really are just four megafirms (and a large number of "boutique" firms).

People probably mean Microsoft, Google, and two of Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. In terms of market share, you probably also want to account for large but less cool organizations like Oracle, HP, Verizon, etc.

I haven't heard Big 4 in context of tech companies, only in context of accounting and consulting firms.

Some stock market analysts use acronym FANG for Facebook, Amazon, NetFlix, and Google, best performing tech stocks recently.