It's definitely an outdated term. Nowadays I personally use FAANG as an alias to "tech company in which employment is synonymous with status in the tech community"

Effectively Yes. I felt like I don't really need to clarify that this includes more than what the literal FAANG is to this audience haha.

But using it in such a sense lacks clarity. Would it better to say any "non-startup tech company"?

I would suggest "Fortune 500 Technology sector" but that captures a lot of companies that don't have an emphasis on software.

> MANAMANA incorporates eight consumer technology companies ranging from $300 billion in market capitalization (Netflix) up to $2.5 trillion (Microsoft). [1]

[1] https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/11/05/faang-is-dead-long...

It’s just a fun synecdoche. Netflix was included to make the acronym fun.

It’s like when some people say “Silicon Valley” when they mean San Francisco or vice versa: from a distance they look like the same thing.