Technology is scientific knowledge, strategies and processes used to solve problems. It's been around since the dawn of civilization and is used by every company to conduct and improve business.
Let me put this way: your average hospital has 1000x times more technology in use at any given moment then even the most silicon valley "tech" companies, but they are properly classified as healthcare companies.
Reductionism is considering tech to only be something about computers and that only a handful of special companies are the only ones who use it. Perhaps you missed my statement about the hospital?
Since technology is applied science, why does a hospital using complex scientific machines to deliver healthcare not qualify but a company building a webapp to order food does? Where's the line exactly?
Nowadays i'd say a tech company is defined by the "tech" it is implementing to disrupt/control the market. no disruption tech = waste of vc capital. "we do x better" isn't enough to last unless it's so radically better it is a new space(google's call screening feature could be spun off into it's own company for eg)
Doing anything at scale pretty much turns you into a tech company these days.
I think all of us in 2019 have a fairly standard consensus understanding of what technology means in the context of this conversation and it would not be good to hijack that to mean anything you want it to mean.
The actual definition[1][2][3] of technology is applied science and knowledge for practical means. Narrowing the scope to fit arbitrary companies seems like the real stretch to me.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology
2. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/technology
3. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/engi...
Amazon is retail, like Walmart has been. Netflix is media production and distribution, like Fox has been. Both have figured out new business models but that doesn't change the business that they're in.
They leverage some damn impressive technology, but their business is about delivering media for end user consumption, much like any of the TV companies during most of the 20th century, for example.
Could people have put food in a box and mailed it to your house before the invention of computers? Yes.
Could people have offered computer hardware and software before the invention of computers? Of course not, that's silly.
Of course Microsoft and Google and Apple and Facebook are tech companies. It requires ridiculous reductionist contortions to argue otherwise.
On the other hand, Munchery could have existed at any time the USPS and Visa/Mastercard were operational. Restaurants have been delivering food for far longer than computers have existed.