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I work for a large healthcare system, and the "we're not a tech company" line is often heard. At many levels, I agree—we're in the business of delivering health
by organsnyder 9y ago
I work for a large healthcare system, and the "we're not a tech company" line is often heard. At many levels, I agree—we're in the business of delivering healthy outcomes to our communities, so we need to make sure that efforts across the enterprise support that—but it is often applied in ways that stifle us from delivering what we feel would be the most impactful and cost-effective solutions.
I like to respond that Netflix isn't a tech company, either—they're in the business of delivering entertainment. Their position and reputation allows them to build a stronger engineering culture, but their technology still is subservient to their non-tech business goals. While "software is eating the world" has been quoted to the point of being a cliché, the organizations that recognize software as a competitive differentiator—rather than merely a cost center—definitely have an edge against their tech-averse competitors.
- oblio 9y agoI like to ask people what's the biggest advertising company in the world. You'd be surprised how many people don't know :)
- wafflesraccoon 9y agoWho is the biggest advertising company? Google?
- oblio 9y agoUnless something changed recently, I believe that $95bn of advertising revenue makes them the biggest advertising company in the world :)
- golemiprague 9y agoThey are the medium, not the advertising company, the same way a tv channel is the medium, not the advertising company. WPP, Omnicom, Dentsu, those are advertising companies. You are conflating here two different things.
- coupdetaco 9y agothey are distribution, just like the agencies. Only Google drives distribution costs down
- bannable 9y agoProbably WPP or Omnicom.
- vlovich123 9y agoGoogle.
- guyzero 9y agoOmnicom: $15B revenue annually, $17B market cap WPP: $18B revenue, $23B market cap Google: $110B revenue, $750B market cap Seems like a good argument that being tech-forward provides a multiplier on value versus doing the same old thing, if you believe that these are all just advertising companies.
- debt 9y agoI say the same about largest media company in the world. It's shocking that people don't know it's Facebook. And in their case not just in the world, but the largest media company in history by a very wide margin. People don't see any connection between William Randolph Hearst and Mark Zuckerberg; Facebook really has the best PR team.
- freehunter 9y agoWell the difference is that Facebook is an aggregator and doesn't actually publish or write any of their own content. They're a media company, sure, but they're not directly comparable to newspapers or cable news outlets.
- TremendousJudge 9y agoGoogle doesn't make the ads either, they just publish them on their platform
- rootlocus 9y agoFrom a consumer point of view, Facebook is pretty much a news source. For some even the only news source.
- lugg 9y agoExactly what do newspapers and cable news have in common with each other that Facebook doesn't?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rdiddly 9y agoYou know who else would be surprised, is 1998 Larry Page & 1998 Sergey Brin. Especially the part about hearing their company called an "advertising company," much less the largest one.
- ucaetano 9y agoWhich then makes any ad-paid company an advertising company. Which is a completely useless definition. Don't mix source of revenue with core business, especially in multi-sided markets.
- shreyanshd 9y agoI work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.
- dopamean 9y agoHow could you say that the tech you develop might be the only factor in revenue calculations? That makes no sense to me in investment banking.
- yourapostasy 9y agoIf tech really is the differentiator, then hearing that means tech staff won’t get commensurately compensated for delivering that decisive factor to the revenue mix. The rules of old business still applies in most organizations: the closer you are to the transactional point where money changes hands, the more you make. This many times means sales, then management, then finance, then marketing, then engineering, then back office.
- dopamean 9y agoYeah I get all that. I guess what I mean is that I just don't believe that the technology at an investment bank is responsible for all of the revenue at the bank. There's no way that's true. There are people who actually go out and do advisory deals and such which are actual people making things happen. Sure, they are enabled by technology, but those kinds of deals have been done for decades.
- bboreham 9y agoInvestment banks also do huge volumes of transactional business - dealing in shares, bonds, fx and derivatives of those. And all of those need hundreds of risk reports either for management or regulators. The deal-makers can get by with a spreadsheet and a BlackBerry, but the rest needs serious amounts of technology. Ideally advisory business is balanced with dealing and financing, but different houses will be slanted one way or another.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sbov 9y agoCan't you play this definition game with any company though? I kind of think that if an organization views tech as a competitive advantage and core competency, they are a tech company. E.g. Netflix may be in the business of entertainment, but they are also a tech company. Google may be in the business of selling ads, but they are also a tech company.
- thephyber 9y agoThe way I read it, there is a management position of shunning new tech by saying "we are not a technology company". That statement can also be interpreted as "we are not an innovation company" which conveys an aversion to change. I think the point of the GP is to say that Netflix "isn't a technology company", but they don't parade around saying that. Netflix uses technology and innovation to the fullest as the means to accomplish the ends of delivering great entertainment value at a low cost. I don't think it's as much about the "definition game" as about the message that is conveyed.
- madeofpalk 9y agoYes you can, and that's kind of the point. Slowly but surely, more and more companies are realising that their digital efforts are just as integral to their business as whatever else it is that they're doing. Every company needs to be a tech company now. In Australia, Commbank realised this at a very early stage: there's actually very little differentiation between the financial products from bank to bank. Sure, interest rates change here and there but on the whole, everyone is the same. Commbank realised that they can make their internet banking and mobile apps just as much as their core product and their differentiator. People aren't going to stay with their bank because of a debit card, but they will stay the one with the better app with more features. They rolled out a bunch of firsts - peer to peer payments by bumping phones together in 2010, transferring money to others using just their phone number, or 'Cardless Cash' where overnight they updated their network of ATMs to allow withdrawals using their phone app. Qantas is another example of a company that invests (for better or worse) heavily into their digital products all throughout the customer journey. Every company needs to be apt at digital because, in one way or another, every company is a tech company. It's the successful ones that realise this and use it to their advantage.
- tmaly 9y agoI work at a financial services company. You simply cannot exist if you are not a tech company due to the complexity of the regulations.
- justjico 9y ago100% Agree. It’s like saying Coca-Cola is not a marketing company, they sell beverages. Or Apple is not a “design” company, they sell hardware. sigh
- ucaetano 9y ago> It’s like saying Coca-Cola is not a marketing company, they sell beverages. They don't even sell beverages. Their (mostly) independently-owned bottlers do!
- mywittyname 9y ago>Coca-Cola is not a marketing company, I never agreed with this mentality. Advertisement is Coke's cost center; it's not what they sell. They sell licensing rights to soft drinks: that's what makes them money. Advertisement is a cost of having a customer facing brand. Should P&G and Unilever be considered advertisement companies?
- jeremyjh 9y ago> Should P&G and Unilever be considered advertisement companies? Absolutely. The value of their businesses are entirely based on the brands that they have built, and those brands are built by advertising. Making food to stuff in the boxes is just a cost of building a successful brand.
- lojack 9y agoBut the brand itself doesn’t make them money. That doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable or even that it isn’t their biggest asset. What makes them money is people buying their product.
- baybal2 9y agoYou can fairly say that Coca cola is a packaging company.
- heedlessly2 9y agoApple is a design company. Foxconn, Qualcomm, and Samsung make their hardware. Cognizan and InfoSys develop some of their software too.
- johan_larson 9y agoIt looks like Goldman has no tech people among their top executives. I would have expected at least a CTO or CIO. I don't see this working out for them. http://www.goldmansachs.com/who-we-are/leadership/executive-officers/ http://www.goldmansachs.com/who-we-are/leadership/executive-...
- idlecool 9y agoThen who do engineers report to?
- babaganoosh89 9y agoPresumably a VP of engineering
- wan23 9y agoProbably not - you'd be surprised how low the the title of "Vice President" is in finance companies.
- barrkel 9y agoVP of Engineering isn't as devalued as VP of Sales even in companies where a couple of years of experience gets you VP. Subject matters.
- oarsinsync 9y agoI know people who are less than 5 years into their first jobs from graduation who are VPs in Engineering, in financial firms in London (City) and New York (Wall Street). Organisation/culture/industry matters more than subject, I think.
- bennyelv 9y agoIn my experience it's pretty rare to get the VP title in less than 5 years. In fact in my graduate intake nobody did it in that timescale. Good people would get it in 5-7 years.
- samstave 9y ago>"I like to respond that Netflix isn't a tech company, either—they're in the business of delivering entertainment." knowing multiple people from netflix; this is literally a very-uninformed comment... Much of what you even KNOW about cloud-computing, spot markets, streaming, CDNs, etc was pioneered by netflix. They are secretive, but innovative as heck. So, your comment is a big NOPE.
- s73v3r_ 9y agoRight, but the purpose behind all of that was delivering entertainment. Hence, entertainment company.
- samstave 9y agoFine. Ill concede that point.
- organsnyder 9y agoThat was my entire point. Netflix has introduced numerous innovations—many of which they've shared publicly—all while not making a dime (to my knowledge) from selling the software itself. Contrast that with a company like Microsoft, where software (either shrink-wrap, or as-a-service) is their core product.
- sidlls 9y ago> Much of what you even KNOW about cloud-computing, spot markets, streaming, CDNs, etc was pioneered by netflix. Let's not overstate the case. Much of this was around before (sometimes long before) Netflix's digital rise.
- megy 9y agoWow, I think you missed his point entirely.
- opportune 9y agoThat was the entire premise. Netflix isn't a tech company in the same way banks aren't - technically. But obviously both functionally are since their entire businesses depend on their technology
- _raoulcousins 9y agoMy employer uses the line to justify paying developers below market wages.
- heroprotagonist 9y agoYou'd think this would pay more, to make up for lack of supportive infrastructure and career opportunity.
- baybal2 9y ago>but their technology still is subservient to their non-tech business goals. While "software is eating the world" has been quoted to the point of being a cliché, Better to say "software ate the world, but netflix has eaten the software" by almost singlehandedly wiping all its upstart competitors from "indigenous tech companies." To some extend, Netflix deserve some credit for tech. A non-dotcom running tier one CDN is not a small deal. Yet, they are still a small fish "in the bigger picture of things" though.
- nopinsight 9y agoA major reason why upstarts like Netflix could successfully disrupt old guards, while banks and healthcare industries are still largely immuned despite huge inefficiencies in the way they operate, is the trust factor. People don’t mind trying out a new entertainment service by a small startup especially they get a free trial month. If it breaks, so what? The same cannot be said about places they choose to manage their finances or health. Perhaps it might be more promising for a new partnership by big-names in adjacent industries, such as the Amazon-Berkshire Hathaway-JP Morgan healthcare initiative, to disrupt these trust-based industries. If there is a good way to accelerate the process of consumer trust building, it might allow more newcomers a chance of disruptions. It should result in lower costs and economic surpluses for the consumers. ‘How?’ is the 64-million-dollar question.