I mean, I might not value PHP, Python and Go as a matter of taste, but they have their own ideas worth documenting that were not created by academic researchers. In fact, I'd be suspicious of and programming language reference that was controlled by academics or any group with specific credentials because interesting developments in PL are extremely democratic and happen everywhere. (Including some pretty self-contained bubbles like the world of Chuck Moore and colorForth.)
Given that collyw works in a bioinformatics organization, my underlying question was why collyw discounted all of the cutting edge technology coming out of academic bioinformatics research.
I could also have pointed out, say, cutting edge techniques in photochemistry for arene C-H amination, which came from a university (see http://www.sciencemag.org/content/349/6254/1326 ).
By limiting "tech" to those areas of software where Google and Microsoft have a strong business interest, then of course they will have a strong presence. I wanted to highlight that possible bias.
New methods of analyzing data, which can be implemented as a script, is also new technology. But it sounds like you are excluding it as a possibility.
Again, what do you call "tech"?
Intel provides most of the CPUs that Google, Microsoft, etc. use. Can't I be equally dismissive and say that Intel provides the tech and Google/MS merely run programs on top of it?
From your profile, you work at the "CNAG DNA sequencing centre in Barcelona", so you know that Google and MS aren't really doing cutting edge work on that area of technology, compared to, say, UC Santa Cruz.
However, you are are a Django developer, so the things you are interested in are more aligned with the types of things that Google and MS work on. Perhaps there's a bias in what you consider to be 'tech'?