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Let me put it this way: Could people have put food in a box and mailed it to your house before the invention of computers? Yes. Could people have offered comp
by twblalock 8y ago
Let me put it this way:
Could people have put food in a box and mailed it to your house before the invention of computers? Yes.
Could people have offered computer hardware and software before the invention of computers? Of course not, that's silly.
Of course Microsoft and Google and Apple and Facebook are tech companies. It requires ridiculous reductionist contortions to argue otherwise.
On the other hand, Munchery could have existed at any time the USPS and Visa/Mastercard were operational. Restaurants have been delivering food for far longer than computers have existed.
- manigandham 8y agoDo you think tech is just computers? Of course you cant offer computer software until computers are invented, what does that statement prove exactly? Technology is scientific knowledge, strategies and processes used to solve problems. It's been around since the dawn of civilization and is used by every company to conduct and improve business. Let me put this way: your average hospital has 1000x times more technology in use at any given moment then even the most silicon valley "tech" companies, but they are properly classified as healthcare companies.
- twblalock 8y agoThis is the kind of reductionism that blends everything together, which is useless. Nobody is better off for having thought this way. It just muddles everything together and there is no upside to doing it.
- manigandham 8y agoActually this is the opposite since it's clearly defining the kind of company based on what it actually produces and the industry it serves. Reductionism is considering tech to only be something about computers and that only a handful of special companies are the only ones who use it. Perhaps you missed my statement about the hospital?
- lazyasciiart 8y agoNobody’s arguing about whether they use technology, but about whether their business is defined by technology enough to be called “tech companies”. Nobody refers to hospitals as “tech companies”?
- manigandham 8y agoWhat does "business defined by technology" actually mean? Can you describe it clearly? Since technology is applied science, why does a hospital using complex scientific machines to deliver healthcare not qualify but a company building a webapp to order food does? Where's the line exactly?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kkarakk 8y agoCan your whole online business be trivially replaced with a phonecall to a local service? congrats you're not a company that can succeed in the tech space because the competition is skyhigh. Nowadays i'd say a tech company is defined by the "tech" it is implementing to disrupt/control the market. no disruption tech = waste of vc capital. "we do x better" isn't enough to last unless it's so radically better it is a new space(google's call screening feature could be spun off into it's own company for eg)
- manigandham 8y agoWhat is the "tech space"? That's still conflating tech as just computing.
- lazyasciiart 8y agoYes. That’s how it is used.
- solveit 8y agoThe point is that the boundaries are being blurred. Is Amazon a tech company? Is Netflix? Is Netflix a tech company if they mailed you CDs instead of streaming the material? Doing anything at scale pretty much turns you into a tech company these days.
- twblalock 8y agoNo, doing things that you could not do without the benefit of technology is what makes you a tech company. Obviously you can stretch the definition of technology to mean pretty much anything if you are not arguing in good faith. I think all of us in 2019 have a fairly standard consensus understanding of what technology means in the context of this conversation and it would not be good to hijack that to mean anything you want it to mean.
- manigandham 8y ago>> stretch the definition of technology to mean pretty much anything The actual definition[1][2][3] of technology is applied science and knowledge for practical means. Narrowing the scope to fit arbitrary companies seems like the real stretch to me. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology 2. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/technology https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/technology 3. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/engineering-and-technology/technology/what-technology https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/engi...
- swish_bob 8y agoSo, when colour television was the cutting edge of technology, the TV companies were tech companies?
- manigandham 8y agoNo, there is no "tech company". Amazon is retail, like Walmart has been. Netflix is media production and distribution, like Fox has been. Both have figured out new business models but that doesn't change the business that they're in.
- 8y ago