I totally agree that Google is a tech company, they are driven by tech, they build tons of hardware and software. There is no denying that, but the original par

I totally agree that Google is a tech company, they are driven by tech, they build tons of hardware and software. There is no denying that, but the original parent comment was about how google is NOT an advertising company and is actually an AI tech company. I agree that McDonalds is actually in the real estate biz more than the hamburger biz. Where I think the comparison falls down is that McDonalds restaurant biz is in service to building their real estate holdings and it's not always clear if ads are in support of tech or vice versa at Google. In my business dealings with Google over the years, it's been very clear that Google skews pretty hard towards growing and supporting AdWords even at the expense of User Experience, customer desires, etc. Just look at how they are blending ads with organic results more and more or how they are forcing Google+ down everyone's throats or how they won't show keywords unless you are buying AdWords. In those cases, they aren't making tech decisions, they are making business decisions to support selling more ads. Google obviously does a lot of tech and sells a lot of ads, but like a hydra, it's not exactly clear which head controls the beast. I would certainly skew towards ads, but you could argue that it's about the tech. It might be both or something completely different and non obvious.