I worked at Facebook last year and Google this year. I don't have an insider view of the other companies but some of my closest friends work at all of them except Netflix.
My guess is that none of these will stop growing in the next few years, but Facebook is especially undervalued. They execute on new products faster and better than the others listed, so regardless of current sentiment they are probably not going to fail any time soon.
I chose Netflix because I have the least evidence to suggest they will remain stable, but would say the odds are <10% any of these have a lower market cap in 5 years than they do now.
Having worked at Facebook and seeing where they are headed I think the HN numbers are way off and this poll is mostly "what company does HN hate the most" not which is most likely to decline. Hating FB as a company is fine, and FB as a product is probably likely to decline, but they are as OP mentioned significantly better at shipping new product than any other company listed except Apple. Facebook's biggest challenges are not owning a real platform (platform holders could hurt them) and having lots of serious competitors. These are real problems, but I think their ability to fast follow can put them in #2 for a lot of different categories they care about.
Netflix has a lot of room to grow in new markets, gaming and possibly other types of media. I think they can continue to produce good content and I think some smaller players that are locking content to their own services might return to Netflix in the future (like Microsoft, Sony and EA are now all back on Steam)
I don't think any of these companies is in serious threat of decline, but out of all of them Google seems most stagnant.
The only thing I could think of without cheating and using Google is the Oculus line. I'm not personally convinced there's a huge VR market, but there could be, and Facebook probably has the best product for this market. They aren't competing against the other megacorps listed in that particular market though, so I can't evaluate if they execute faster/better than others.
I know Apple executes pretty well on products, and at a rate that far exceeds my own upgrade cycle.
I bet he means like "Copy stories in instagram!" by "Products". I've heard a lot of social media devs talk about features as products. I'm guessing because that's how product managers see them in those orgs.
I don't find it a very good definition. Implementing a feature is not a new product.
When north of a billion people use you Craigslist feature and your Snapchat copy feature spawns 3 business lines larger than Snapchat itself within each of your platforms, I think it's fair to call them products even if they live under existing products' umbrellas.
My guess is that none of these will stop growing in the next few years, but Facebook is especially undervalued. They execute on new products faster and better than the others listed, so regardless of current sentiment they are probably not going to fail any time soon.
I chose Netflix because I have the least evidence to suggest they will remain stable, but would say the odds are <10% any of these have a lower market cap in 5 years than they do now.