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Are you implying that Google is a "tech" company that is actually an advertising vendor? I understand where they derive most of their revenue from but given their contributions to everything from the linux kernel, to networking, containers, etc. I think it's a little unfair to put quotes around "tech" in their case.

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In the sense of where does the money come from, google is absolutely an advertising company.

You can be an advertising company and also make some contributions to tech at the same time

Sure, if a "tech company" can only make money by selling in-house developed technology, and not by packaging in-house developed technology into other products, then I concede the point. There are fairly few "tech companies" by that definition.

I still think your rephrasing of the characterization is somewhat unfair to Google. They created their main business by developing the technology to enable it, and they have gone way beyond "some contributions" to software and systems technology in support of it.

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