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Airbnb or Uber are not really tech companies. They are business companies with a WebApp required as part of the execution. They didn't invent anything on the te

Airbnb or Uber are not really tech companies. They are business companies with a WebApp required as part of the execution. They didn't invent anything on the technical level, they brought some business ideas to existing tech (I mean Airbnb is literally a website with a DB) In the same way that United is not a tech company, but they have a website that accepts reservation. Tech companies create new Tech as part of their lifecycle: Intel, AMD, Google, etc etc. They create new Tech that didn't exist before, and this is core to their product. I get that Silicon Valley shifted from Real tech 20 years ago to Futile WebApps that deliver pizzas faster, but it makes me sad that the new definition of tech shifted so much to pure business.

austenallred 8y ago
I think you're drastically underestimating what those companies do
ebarns 8y ago
not necessarily true. AirBnb created Lottie which drastically changed the way people can do cookie cutter animations in in apps. I'd argue that their business decisions are driven by tech. By improving their tech/apps they enable their business to succeed more than the others. Ubers app is also pretty complex, it's not just a simple queue of riders and drivers
goobynight 8y ago
Anyone dealing with requests per second at their level is a tech company to a greater capacity than most companies will ever be. Do they create software as a service, hardware, and so on? No, but they are a group of practitioners that are really good at putting the pieces together. They've also built a few things like M3 and Envoy.
tracer4201 8y ago
What defines a “real” tech company? Gatekeeping what can or cannot be defined defined as a tech company. Am I on Reddit or hacker news? Wow.
- warp_factor 8y ago
  I was actually making a point that what defines a tech company shifted over time. 10 years ago, we had some "hard tech" with a lot of tech innovation. I was arguing that the meaning of "tech company" shifted to a business company, using tech as a way to streamline operations. Those are very different in my opinion. I obviously prefer the first one. But I accept that in the collective mind, tech company mainly means a website nowadays.

austenallred 8y ago

I think you're drastically underestimating what those companies do

ebarns 8y ago

not necessarily true. AirBnb created Lottie which drastically changed the way people can do cookie cutter animations in in apps. I'd argue that their business decisions are driven by tech. By improving their tech/apps they enable their business to succeed more than the others. Ubers app is also pretty complex, it's not just a simple queue of riders and drivers

goobynight 8y ago

Anyone dealing with requests per second at their level is a tech company to a greater capacity than most companies will ever be. Do they create software as a service, hardware, and so on? No, but they are a group of practitioners that are really good at putting the pieces together. They've also built a few things like M3 and Envoy.

tracer4201 8y ago

What defines a “real” tech company? Gatekeeping what can or cannot be defined defined as a tech company. Am I on Reddit or hacker news? Wow.

warp_factor 8y ago
I was actually making a point that what defines a tech company shifted over time. 10 years ago, we had some "hard tech" with a lot of tech innovation. I was arguing that the meaning of "tech company" shifted to a business company, using tech as a way to streamline operations. Those are very different in my opinion. I obviously prefer the first one. But I accept that in the collective mind, tech company mainly means a website nowadays.