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concerns, the new smaller companies
would be worth more than the sum of
their parts.
Co-manager of the Scottish
Mortgage investment trust Tom Slater
has held most of the FAANG stocks at
some point, but the exposure in his
top-10 is now limited to Amazon and
Netflix. Rather than speculating about
potential government intervention,
he prefers to own companies that
choose to do the right thing before
others make that decision for them.
“Take something like Amazon,
where we had concerns about
whether the company was paying
appropriate rates of tax and
conditions in its warehouses,” he says.
“We believe it is crucial to Amazon’s
appeal to consumers that it is seen
The growing influence of
these companies could
prove to be a double-edged
sword as a minority of
customers begin to use
their powerful technology
for morally questionable
purposes
as a good corporate citizen, both in
its employment practices and in its
approach to taxation. And we can
have those conversations.”
Rather than government regulation,
Slater believes the biggest threat
to these tech disruptors is being
disrupted themselves, warning this
has already happened. Admittedly,
this wasn’t a member of the FAANGs,
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