Well, "tech" is short for "high technology", which typically means the bleeding edge. I'm certain that parts of modern shoe manufacturing are very novel, especi

Well, "tech" is short for "high technology", which typically means the bleeding edge. I'm certain that parts of modern shoe manufacturing are very novel, especially around materials science, but is its bleeding-edge-ness its defining characteristic, like it has been for eg computing? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like they're making sneakers only very slightly differently than Nike has been for many decades, using a different foam resin supplier that claims to make it out of sugarcane feedstock rather than petroleum, and some nice claims of using recycled bottles for laces to make it so that their customers can feel a little better about buying fairly disposable shoes made from polymer foam.