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If their main business does not involve selling information technology to other people and companies, they're not a tech company.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> selling tech to other companies By that measure, Apple and Google aren’t tech companies. (Apple sells devices to consumers. Google sells ads to companies.) They are. They just aren’t software companies.
- philipov 4y ago
  Google isn't a tech company, it's an ad company. Apple is a tech company because they sell computers, which are information systems: Hardware counts. Chip manufacturers are also good examples of tech companies.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Apple is a tech company because they sell computers, which are information systems If we’re making that stretch, I fail to see how a modern car isn’t an information system as well. What is and isn’t a tech company is context dependent. Economically, it describes a high gross margin business with negligible variable costs and vast scaling opportunity. By this definition, Tesla and Apple are not tech companies. The difference between them being Apple trades at 20x earnings while Tesla does 30+. If you’re in the job market, on the other hand, this isn’t nearly as relevant as revenue per employee and thus pay per employee, together with culture and type of work. By those definitions, both Apple and Tesla are tech companies, albeit idiosyncratically in their own ways.
    - philipov 4y ago
      It contains information systems, but it is not an information system. It is a vehicle. Its purpose is to provide transportation.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > contains information systems, but it is not an information system. It is a vehicle. Its purpose is to provide transportation By this measure, personal computers haven’t been tech since the 1980s. Virtually nobody wants an information system, whatever that means. They want to buy a function. That was OG Jobs.
  - myko 4y ago
    Google also sells computers, though: https://store.google.com/product/pixelbook_go?hl=en-US https://store.google.com/product/pixelbook_go?hl=en-US

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> selling tech to other companies By that measure, Apple and Google aren’t tech companies. (Apple sells devices to consumers. Google sells ads to companies.) They are. They just aren’t software companies.

philipov 4y ago
Google isn't a tech company, it's an ad company. Apple is a tech company because they sell computers, which are information systems: Hardware counts. Chip manufacturers are also good examples of tech companies.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Apple is a tech company because they sell computers, which are information systems If we’re making that stretch, I fail to see how a modern car isn’t an information system as well. What is and isn’t a tech company is context dependent. Economically, it describes a high gross margin business with negligible variable costs and vast scaling opportunity. By this definition, Tesla and Apple are not tech companies. The difference between them being Apple trades at 20x earnings while Tesla does 30+. If you’re in the job market, on the other hand, this isn’t nearly as relevant as revenue per employee and thus pay per employee, together with culture and type of work. By those definitions, both Apple and Tesla are tech companies, albeit idiosyncratically in their own ways.
  - philipov 4y ago
    It contains information systems, but it is not an information system. It is a vehicle. Its purpose is to provide transportation.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > contains information systems, but it is not an information system. It is a vehicle. Its purpose is to provide transportation By this measure, personal computers haven’t been tech since the 1980s. Virtually nobody wants an information system, whatever that means. They want to buy a function. That was OG Jobs.
- myko 4y ago
  Google also sells computers, though: https://store.google.com/product/pixelbook_go?hl=en-US https://store.google.com/product/pixelbook_go?hl=en-US