Re:Netflix is not a tech company (2019)
by nine_k on Tuesday September 07, 2021 @01:59PM
(#28447770)
I would hazard to say that a sufficient (not a necessary) condition for a company to be a "tech company" is its tech being hard to replicate, that is, far from a commodity.
Google is a tech company because both the search and the ads networks are hard at the planet scale; we can see how hard it is to compete.
Same applies to e.g. Twitter or Uber. It applies much less to, say, Reddit, or eBay, or Craiglist; their tech is secondary to their existing network effects.
A company like GrubHub definitely has a strong tech branch, but the tech is secondary to its delivery network and restaurant contracts.
A company like CNN, equally, must have a strong engineering / IT branch, but it's so secondary it feels totally invisible, and everyone sees them as a "media company", not a "tech company".
Google is a tech company because both the search and the ads networks are hard at the planet scale; we can see how hard it is to compete.
Same applies to e.g. Twitter or Uber. It applies much less to, say, Reddit, or eBay, or Craiglist; their tech is secondary to their existing network effects.
A company like GrubHub definitely has a strong tech branch, but the tech is secondary to its delivery network and restaurant contracts.
A company like CNN, equally, must have a strong engineering / IT branch, but it's so secondary it feels totally invisible, and everyone sees them as a "media company", not a "tech company".