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A tech company is a company that sells technology, not a company that uses it. An insurance company sells the product of insurance, how they do it is irrelevant

A tech company is a company that sells technology, not a company that uses it. An insurance company sells the product of insurance, how they do it is irrelevant — they still sell insurance. Apple is a tech company — they develop and sell technology. Uber is a tech company: they sell yield management systems to independent car owners who want to sell space in their car. A bank isn’t a tech company; they don’t sell technology, they sell investments/banking services. A company that sells medical diagnostic tools is a tech company. A hospital isn’t. They sell the service of fixing your broken body, using tech from suppliers who are tech companies. A company that uses tech isn’t a tech company. A tech company is one that sells tech. It’s pretty clear what the difference is. WeWork is a real estate company, that’s it.

opportune 7y ago
By this argument, Google and Facebook aren't tech companies, since they make the vast majority of their revenues by selling advertising. Is that technology? The way in which they do their advertising perhaps is, but advertising itself is not really technology in the way a phone or copy of some software is. I would argue that a tech company is a company which derives most of its real value through technology. And that it's a spectrum, not binary - companies that sell hardware and software licenses are more "tech" than companies that heavily leverage uniquely valuable technology to sell old-school goods and services. But those companies with uniquely valuable tech to sell old-school goods and services, like Google/FB (ads), Amazon (catalog retailer), Netflix (entertainment like cable) still derive most of their value from doing technological things, and I think that makes them tech companies, even though they don't directly sell tech But still, WeWork is not really a tech company because their value isn't in their tech

opportune 7y ago

By this argument, Google and Facebook aren't tech companies, since they make the vast majority of their revenues by selling advertising. Is that technology? The way in which they do their advertising perhaps is, but advertising itself is not really technology in the way a phone or copy of some software is. I would argue that a tech company is a company which derives most of its real value through technology. And that it's a spectrum, not binary - companies that sell hardware and software licenses are more "tech" than companies that heavily leverage uniquely valuable technology to sell old-school goods and services. But those companies with uniquely valuable tech to sell old-school goods and services, like Google/FB (ads), Amazon (catalog retailer), Netflix (entertainment like cable) still derive most of their value from doing technological things, and I think that makes them tech companies, even though they don't directly sell tech But still, WeWork is not really a tech company because their value isn't in their tech