Then why is he talking about what he looks for in Tech Startups? It doesn't seem that he's looking for Tech Startups at all. Plenty of other kinds of startups than tech startups.
It would rarely (in my experience) even encompass hardware. Certainly nothing requiring novel basic technology (science based startups).
I don’t know why terminology is used like this. Essentially it’s like saying mail order catalogs are technology companies because they take advantage of advances in printing, telecommunications etc.
I guess it’s because the process of building websites is still messy, and somewhat easy to get wrong.
The examples cited in the article are mostly websites. And I think (given the title of the article) he would describe himself as a tech investor.
In any case, what investors say isn’t as important as what they do. In my experience they often say they are interested in Biotech, Science based startups, or hardware. The reality is they rarely invest, and when they do, they invest in very conversative plays (aside from the occasional misguided Theranos type play).
The reality is in general tech to then means “some kind of website where I understand the engagement metrics” most of the time.
Very few of the companies we call "tech startups" are actually producing tech as an output. More like they are solving technical challenges to increase efficiency or create market niches in traditional industries.
There were many ridesharing startups before Uber, but the reason why Uber became the market leader is that they were one of the first to leverage the iPhone.
(For some reason though, each company has to have its own implementation of that same CRUD.)
I think it's for talent retention / hiring reasons. They want to give engineers something to tinker with and build up their own frameworks and libraries.
It's what makes working on CRUD after CRUD at least little bit more exciting. Otherwise engineers would be bored to death and would leave to different companies.
Personally, I am bored to death with more and more iterations of the very same. It makes enjoying the job harder (and it also makes finding an interesting job harder too).
Well, they're different CRUDs, no?
Hacker News and Facebook both boil down to a database hooked up to a web-based front-end, but the glue in the middle isn't going to be the same.