My theory: When I was staring out, the company “gray beards” were highly valuable and well-respected. Then “tech” as a meaningful name for a business vertical

My theory: When I was staring out, the company “gray beards” were highly valuable and well-respected. Then “tech” as a meaningful name for a business vertical became diluted to the point that tech wasn’t necessarily valuable to “tech.” GE created NBC, but NBC isn't branding themselves as an engineering company. GE could realistically be called an engineering company despite operating in many other markets, and NBC was probably instrumental in cutting age broadcast tech for decades and decades, but that's not the business they were in.