Ask HN: What makes company the tech company | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What makes company the tech company

1 pointtester7562 comments

I've been thinking about it for a while

You have Google which has data centers all over the world, they create opearting systems, programming languages/compilers, they do shitton of research, create tools like browser, k8s and other

You have Microsoft - they create OSes, programming languages/compilers, do shitton of research, a lot of tools like databases

Facebook has their DCs too, they have their hack language, they create web frameworks like React, they have strong ML where they do a lot of research

but how about other companies? Are Netflix, Uber, Twitter tech companies? if yes, then why? at which point company becomes tech?

I'm sometimes jokingly saying that if company uses computers and has a lot of customers(thus servers/microservices) then it is tech company

oooo... interesting question. I'll give it a shot though.

In my opinion, a tech company is a company whose primary products/services are digital electronics, e-commerce, software, hardware, and internet services.

Netflix, in my opinion, is not a technology company. It is a media company that uses a digital content platform to deliver their product. Uber is also not a technology company, it is a transportation company that uses an online platform to connect users with their drivers. Both of these companies could use other means to deliver their products/services, but they've chosen to use a digital platform.

That said, I'll admit that it is very hard to clearly define the line nowadays. Almost every major company has a sizable IT department, an internet footprint, and/or a data center. So if those were the bar to entry, then nearly every company would be a tech company.

>Netflix, in my opinion, is not a technology company. It is a media company that uses a digital content platform to deliver their product. Uber is also not a technology company, it is a transportation company that uses an online platform to connect users with their drivers. Both of these companies could use other means to deliver their products/services, but they've chosen to use a digital platform.

>That said, I'll admit that it is very hard to clearly define the line nowadays. Almost every major company has a sizable IT department, an internet footprint, and/or a data center. So if those were the bar to entry, then nearly every company would be a tech company.

I totally agree with you here

Reply on news.ycombinator.com