>But we don't call, say, banks tech companies. A huge portion of their business requires sophisticated technical infrastructure they create themselves, but we j

>But we don't call, say, banks tech companies. A huge portion of their business requires sophisticated technical infrastructure they create themselves, but we just call them banks. I understand your criteria for classification but I'll attempt to explain why others think of Uber as a "tech company". Others' viewpoint: Yes, virtually every company uses technology but not every company is birthed by technology: - the Uber founders (Travis K and Garrett C) were software programmers, not taxicab owners. - the product they worked on was a smartphone app instead of buying a car with a taxi medallion and driving around for fares. - the type of investors that funded them (e.g. Benchmark Capital) were VCs that specialize in the tech sector. - the type of companies Uber has acquired[1] so far are tech focused (e.g. machine learning, geospatial, etc). Yes, 100-year-old banks always have ongoing modernization with evolving technology (e.g. Citi and Chase have developed smartphone apps) but Uber's birth was programmers playing around with smartphones. Another example of the perception difference is eBay vs Sotheby's/Christie's. eBay is typically called a "tech company" but Sotheby's/Christie's are called "auction houses". If eBay brings together buyers & sellers in a marketplace... and Sotheby's/Christie's also has an auctions marketplace... why is "tech company" more often attached to eBay rather than Sotheby's/Christie's? (Both Sotheyby's & Christie's have websites for users to place bids so they develop technology as well.) Probably because eBay was born on the internet by a software programmer named Pierre Omidyar. I'm not saying you have to agree with all that but just trying to explain the "hidden taxonomy" that some of the others (including the news media) use to label certain companies as "tech company". [1] https://acquiredby.co/uber-acquisitions/ https://acquiredby.co/uber-acquisitions/