2017 October 11, Frahad Manjoo, “The Frightful Five Want to Rule Entertainment. They Are Hitting Limits.”, in The New York Times:
The companies I call the Frightful Five — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet, Google’s parent company — have experienced astounding growth over the last few years, making them the world’s five most valuable public companies.
2017 September/October, Shane Greenstein, “Insider Privileges”, in IEEE Micro, volume 37, number 5:
Both factors freeze out other entrants, limit the number of insiders to one or two, and reduce many outsiders to irrelevance, if they survive at all. Lest anyone doubt the importance of rapid scaling and network effects, the Frightful Five benefit(ed) from these factors.
2018, Karan P. Jani, Anmol Soni, “Promise and Perils of Bid Data Science for Intelligence Community”, in Technology and the Intelligence Community, →ISBN, page 184:
The major asset of technology's "Frightful Five" - Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple - lies in their ability to synergize user databases with thrid party commerce (MIT Sloan 2017; Manjoo 2017).
Imagine that an "evil, tech-phobic monarch" forced everyone to stop using products and services from the major technology companies: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet (the parent company of Google), a.k.a. the "Frightful Five."
2019, Ronald M. Baecker, Computers and Society: Modern Perspectives, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 367:
Overall, the Frightful Five are healthier than ever.
