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These journalists, along with most people outside the tech industry, fail to see the overall picture. 4 out of 5 of the largest companies on earth are tech firm

These journalists, along with most people outside the tech industry, fail to see the overall picture. 4 out of 5 of the largest companies on earth are tech firms, and none of them were even close to that position 10 years ago. Software runs the world and tech companies are the single largest driver of the modern American economy, making the overall pool of companies that may go belly up at any given time larger. Public consciousness just hasn't caught up to that fact yet since it happened so fast.

deleted 10y ago
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- deleted 10y ago
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refurb 10y ago
I'd have to disagree. It may seem like tech is driving the US economy when you're standing in Silicon Valley, but it's not even in the top 5.[1] Energy, manufacturing, transportation, healthcare and agriculture have seen the most growth lately. Of course tech can play a role in all of those industries, but overall tech is not that big a part of the US economy. [1]http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/5-industries-driving-us-economy.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/5-indu...
- rm999 10y ago
  Technology isn't just an industry - it's a way of doing things and is becoming ubiquitous. When people think "tech" they may think of sharing status updates or searching for a restaurant. What about driverless trucks (transportation), gene sequencing (healthcare), industrial robotics (manufacturing), automated warehouses (retail), solar research (energy), farm-specific yield optimization (agriculture)? This stuff is all being driven from within the tech industry, even when it will benefit "other" industries.
  - zadig 10y ago
    I think the point the previous commentator was trying to make is the distinction between the 'tech industry' a la Silicon Valley versus other industries - and it would be unfair to credit the former with any innovation in the latter. Pretty much every industry since we have invented fire has grown through advances in 'tech'. So what makes a firm a 'tech' firm - in this day and age it's hard to say, and I'm not sure if it's a useful exercise.
    - pj_mukh 10y ago
      All the tech he mentioned in the conventional industries are being driven by fundamental changes in the "conventional" tech space. Smartphone market dropping price of mobile computing, cloud-connected robotics deployed across manufacturing floors, all ideas that became mainstream in SV. So, where do you draw the line?
    - ChuckMcM 10y ago
      A "tech" company is a company that provides a good or service that is either completely new and only possible because of a technological innovation, or is a new company providing an existing service using a different vertical stack based on technology which came available after the incumbents were started. Uber is a "tech company" because as they are providing a new business model for a livery service based on using an application to make a market that is distinct from the previous market. Facebook is a "tech company" because they are providing a business model around sharing information between acquaintances (a social network) using an application and a web site. Fedex is not a tech company as they are augmenting but not replacing their model or their processes. Foster Farms is not a tech company as they have not fundamentally changed the way in which they raise chicken. I go back and forth on Tesla or SpaceX. Consider Tesla, they are a car company but electric cars have been around forever, their most successful incarnation, the Golf Cart, has dominated golf courses for decades. It wasn't the "idea" or the "product" that made the Roadster and then the Model S successful, it was the execution on the vision. Similarly SpaceX rockets are just rockets with better execution and better alignment with available technology.
      - 10y ago
- vox_mollis 10y ago
  Additionally, much of what most consider "tech" is actually media and entertainment. c.f. facebook, twitter, etc. - which just happen to utilize technology in their products. There is surprisingly little tech going on in "tech" today.
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    You could say that Ford is in the automobile industry and they happen to utilize manufacturing in their products, but I don't think it's a useful distinction to make. Just like Ford's cars are made by factories, Facebook's products are made by programmers. Even if you want to look at the "tech industry" as meaning "creates tech for use by other people" instead of just "develops tech-based products for consumers," Facebook still has some solid output (React Native, Nuclide, etc).
    - gaius 10y ago
      Apple and Microsoft make technology as their primary purpose. But if Facebook and Twitter could sell as many ads without technology, then that's what they'd do, because that's what business they're really in.
      - wlesieutre 10y ago
        I'm sure Facebook has people who work there because social networking and a solid cross-platform messaging system are both useful services to a huge number of people. Warner Bros. makes plenty of money off of product placement, but it doesn't make them not a movie studio. And what about Oculus? Are we writing off VR as a technology because Facebook might put advertising in it?
- btreecat 10y ago
  >Energy Requires technology >manufacturing Increasingly dependent on technology for the most basic of operations, such as managing inventory or customer orders. >transportation Automated driving, mandated auto breaking, hired drivers, bus schedules... >healthcare DHR, wireless pace makers, direct to pharmacy prescriptions >agriculture Indoor farms, pink LED's, automated nutrient systems So I think it's quite the understatement >Of course tech can play a role Tech already plays a vital role and with out it we would not have the global economy and productivity levels that we currently enjoy.
  - madengr 10y ago
    The original poster implies software, and software (the main product of SV) is in a bubble which will burst.
  - bhauer 10y ago
    I'm in the tech industry, so I am sympathetic to your view, but you must realize this argument is silly. Energy requires technology? Yes. Technology also requires energy to power... well, everything. Manufacturing requires technology? Yes. Technology also requires manufacturing to build our phones, tablets, computers, Teslas, etc. You can see where I'm going here. The economy is a network. No single node is the focal point around which everything else orbits.
    - sillypog 10y ago
      "People" might be the central node.
      - pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
        so you're saying the iphone is made out of people? now it makes sense why they have nets around the manufacturing buildings... gotta recycle those suicides.
      - smpetrey 10y ago
        Yep. This right here. So what happens when AI becomes is in the focal length of simple adoption? AI isn't even affecting .0000000005% of the economy yet. But when it comes, it going to unleash of fury of change never before seen. To go full circle, there's a reason that the "tech industry" carries a big weight. It's because the Information Age is coming to a close, and who knows what's next.
- npalli 10y ago
  Your article is from Q1/2015. Since then the energy sector has imploded in a catastrophic manner. Pretty amusing to think it is driving the US economy (directly) right now. It is by far causing the biggest loss in jobs and profits. Look at the market cap by sectors right now. https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/markets_sectors/sectors/sectors_in_market.jhtml https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/markets_sectors/sec... Tech. is second only to finance. Given finance is going through it's own troubles, fully expect tech to take over the top sector of the economy in the next five years.
  - novocaine 10y ago
    Market cap != economic driver.
    - amsheehan 10y ago
      Market cap !!= economic drive either.
  - jeanduluoz 10y ago
    How do you think that normalized interest rates will affect your prediction?
    - StanislavPetrov 10y ago
      That depends on what you consider "normalized rates". There's a very good argument to be made that ~0% (if not less) is the new "normalized rate", given the massive debt bubbles that saturate every segment of the economy, both public and private.
- valarauca1 10y ago
  >Manufacturing The data you cite is from 2009->2015 so it's just showing the recovery from the great recession. In reality Manufacturing hasn't created jobs since the 1970's. >Healthcare Their lobby wrote a bill and gave it to the GOP which ran it as Romney Care. Obama couldn't get anything passed so now we call it Obama Care. So yes legally requiring all people to have something does ensure more people buy that thing. >Energy Is having a turbulent time now that you can export US Oil/Gas. Renewables continue to grow at a steady pace tho.
  - enjo 10y ago
    >In reality Manufacturing hasn't created jobs since the 1970's. That's true, but output has steadily grown over those years.
    - valarauca1 10y ago
      Which once again confirms the importance of the Technology Sector. None of that would be possible without Micro-controllers, programmers, or PC's to run their compilers/ladder logic programs on.
      - edejong 10y ago
        And the micro-controllers operating sensors, using chemistry. The chemistry being better controlled by using new materials. The materials being better researched, using high-precision optics. The optics being more precise, using modern physics. Just a random walk around technologies. Yes, computing technology has played a major role in helping us communicate our advances and better model the next iteration. However, it's myopic to regard it as the sole driver.
- odonnellryan 10y ago
  I don't agree with you. Energy, Manufacturing, Transportation, and Healthcare are all very heavily entrenched in technology. I would Agriculture may be "not so tech" still, but look at the amazing advancements in GMOs and equipment that are helping us feed our growing population. Plus, who runs the infrastructure? Tech companies. What do they use when they need stuff? Other tech companies, like Google (apps), Amazon (AWS). They build their solutions using products like Facebook's React...
  - fapjacks 10y ago
    Agriculture may be "not so tech"? My friend, let's go back to my hometown some weekend. I'll introduce you to the most technological people I know (they're farmers).
  - dosgonlogs 10y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ugXLd78JU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ugXLd78JU how cows are milked now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBmFH7fNxnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBmFH7fNxnA grape harvesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlaNDm88yZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlaNDm88yZo Autonomous harvesting robot for Sweet-pepper. Highly recommend watching the cow milking one.
- pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
  I'd have to point out that "driving the US economy" is not related to "growth".[1] add in tech playing the MAJOR role in the MAJOR parts of growth in those industries, and you just look like a silly disagree monkey wasting everyones' time. poo on you, shit monkey. [1]http./duh
- lottin 10y ago
  It's very misleading indeed. And regardless of what has grown the most lately, the top industry in the US by far is Finance (19% of GDP) followed by Government and Manufacturing (12% each). 'Tech' is scattered across various industries, I think for the most part is included in Business Services and in Information. It's simply not nearly as important as some seem to think it is. The data is available here http://www.bea.gov/regional/index.htm http://www.bea.gov/regional/index.htm
- bogomipz 10y ago
  I think that every company is a tech company now in the sense that tech has fundamentally changed the way people do business. I think the old guard media is quick to cheer on a sense of impending doom for tech industry. This is worth a read even if it is from a SV insider: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240531119034809045765122...
- PopsiclePete 10y ago
  Healthcare and Banking usually have huge IT departments. They don't just use typewriters and store customer data on paper just because they're not the software industry. Is there any company anymore that doesn't have at least an IT department? Heck, most of them have their own software divisions. Let's not even get started on companies like Lockheed Martin/Honeywell - how many programmers do you think they employ?
roofer 10y ago
This is exactly how people were thinking about housing market back in 2005. It's a bedrock on which US economy is built and blah, blah, blah... Yes tech is the future - AI, VR, and etc. But most of us are writing web and mobile apps, and lots of those apps are not that useful.
- 300bps 10y ago
  Do some side work for a local business and you'll see how powerful code can be. I did 20 hours side work per week for four years and small projects were able to replace teams of employees that used to hand calculate and process work items. Those teams were able to be moved to other tasks saving companies millions of dollars per year while still growing rapidly.
  - roofer 10y ago
    Good point
  - jmagoon 10y ago
    Same--when you work for a large company you see that a ton of development is about large companies cutting cost through automation. Its unfortunate to be a hatchet man, but that work always exists in economical downtime.
  - cachemiss 10y ago
    While it certainly is more efficient to automate those employees away, in my experience they are rarely assigned to new work, they are simply let go. Whether or not that's good or bad morally or for the economy I won't speculate on. Most companies are actually quite overstaffed for various reasons, freeing up X employees in department Y doesn't mean they slide over to department Z, Z already has more than enough employees usually.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    "Those teams were able to be moved to other tasks saving companies millions of dollars per year while still growing rapidly." Although in all likelihood, they were fired.
jonnathanson 10y ago
The success of technology companies isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. Google is about as different from any given startup as it is from John Deere. Even within the realm of "unicorns," there are those with actual business models (profitable or otherwise), and those without. What we're really talking about here is the end of a half-decade of basically free capital, which has been funneled into startups willy nilly. As a result, a lot of startups that never should have been funded will fail. Other startups that probably deserved funding, but were massively overfunded and overvalued will also face difficulties. Some startups will survive. Similarly, some big tech companies are struggling to right-size the investments they made when their effective cost of capital was radically different from where it is today. Some will be fine. Etc.
adventured 10y ago
> 4 out of 5 of the largest companies on earth are tech firms, and none of them were even close to that position 10 years ago There's an exception to that group. Microsoft was one of the largest companies by market cap ten years ago. They've been very consistently in that spot since 1998.
odonnellryan 10y ago
It's true. And others on the top ten are almost-tech companies: Exxon Johnson & Johnson General Electric AT&T Exxon has a really large research arm, so do Johnson and Johnson. Maybe not tech as this forum traditionally thinks about it, but I'd consider it tech. GE and AT&T have great research arms, as well, and they are much more tech: focused a lot on communications, storage, and hardware.
- petra 10y ago
  Also the tech industry is deeply behind the IOT(platforms), and IOT is dispersed through the economy.
mbesto 10y ago
> 4 out of 5 of the largest companies on earth are tech firms Tech isn't really an industry... Amazon = Retail (and probably another 10-20% software and software services) Google = Advertising (and probably another 10-20% non advertising) Facebook = Advertising Microsoft = Software / Services (but very diversified) Also, companies like Bechtel and Saudi Aramco are not publicly traded but could be considered in the "largest" category. We just don't know what their market cap is because they're private.
- adrr 10y ago
  These firms probably have software engineering as a core competency. I think any firm going forward that doesn't have software engineering as a core competency will get eaten by a "tech" company who does.
grillvogel 10y ago
>and none of them were even close to that position 10 years ago I think you are failing to see the overall picture. 10 years is not a long time, those companies could fall out of favor at any time. yes software runs the world, but is it facebook and twitter software or software that runs industrial services and backend systems? do you really think Uber is more important than something like general electric or dow chemical?
cylinder 10y ago
Software runs the world does not mean software is not in a bubble. Housing / real estate are the backbone of the economy. Everyone needs buildings. Does that mean it could never be in a bubble?

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refurb 10y ago

I'd have to disagree. It may seem like tech is driving the US economy when you're standing in Silicon Valley, but it's not even in the top 5.[1] Energy, manufacturing, transportation, healthcare and agriculture have seen the most growth lately. Of course tech can play a role in all of those industries, but overall tech is not that big a part of the US economy. [1]http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/5-industries-driving-us-economy.asp http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/5-indu...

rm999 10y ago
Technology isn't just an industry - it's a way of doing things and is becoming ubiquitous. When people think "tech" they may think of sharing status updates or searching for a restaurant. What about driverless trucks (transportation), gene sequencing (healthcare), industrial robotics (manufacturing), automated warehouses (retail), solar research (energy), farm-specific yield optimization (agriculture)? This stuff is all being driven from within the tech industry, even when it will benefit "other" industries.
- zadig 10y ago
  I think the point the previous commentator was trying to make is the distinction between the 'tech industry' a la Silicon Valley versus other industries - and it would be unfair to credit the former with any innovation in the latter. Pretty much every industry since we have invented fire has grown through advances in 'tech'. So what makes a firm a 'tech' firm - in this day and age it's hard to say, and I'm not sure if it's a useful exercise.
  - pj_mukh 10y ago
    All the tech he mentioned in the conventional industries are being driven by fundamental changes in the "conventional" tech space. Smartphone market dropping price of mobile computing, cloud-connected robotics deployed across manufacturing floors, all ideas that became mainstream in SV. So, where do you draw the line?
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    A "tech" company is a company that provides a good or service that is either completely new and only possible because of a technological innovation, or is a new company providing an existing service using a different vertical stack based on technology which came available after the incumbents were started. Uber is a "tech company" because as they are providing a new business model for a livery service based on using an application to make a market that is distinct from the previous market. Facebook is a "tech company" because they are providing a business model around sharing information between acquaintances (a social network) using an application and a web site. Fedex is not a tech company as they are augmenting but not replacing their model or their processes. Foster Farms is not a tech company as they have not fundamentally changed the way in which they raise chicken. I go back and forth on Tesla or SpaceX. Consider Tesla, they are a car company but electric cars have been around forever, their most successful incarnation, the Golf Cart, has dominated golf courses for decades. It wasn't the "idea" or the "product" that made the Roadster and then the Model S successful, it was the execution on the vision. Similarly SpaceX rockets are just rockets with better execution and better alignment with available technology.
    - 10y ago
vox_mollis 10y ago
Additionally, much of what most consider "tech" is actually media and entertainment. c.f. facebook, twitter, etc. - which just happen to utilize technology in their products. There is surprisingly little tech going on in "tech" today.
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  You could say that Ford is in the automobile industry and they happen to utilize manufacturing in their products, but I don't think it's a useful distinction to make. Just like Ford's cars are made by factories, Facebook's products are made by programmers. Even if you want to look at the "tech industry" as meaning "creates tech for use by other people" instead of just "develops tech-based products for consumers," Facebook still has some solid output (React Native, Nuclide, etc).
  - gaius 10y ago
    Apple and Microsoft make technology as their primary purpose. But if Facebook and Twitter could sell as many ads without technology, then that's what they'd do, because that's what business they're really in.
    - wlesieutre 10y ago
      I'm sure Facebook has people who work there because social networking and a solid cross-platform messaging system are both useful services to a huge number of people. Warner Bros. makes plenty of money off of product placement, but it doesn't make them not a movie studio. And what about Oculus? Are we writing off VR as a technology because Facebook might put advertising in it?
btreecat 10y ago
>Energy Requires technology >manufacturing Increasingly dependent on technology for the most basic of operations, such as managing inventory or customer orders. >transportation Automated driving, mandated auto breaking, hired drivers, bus schedules... >healthcare DHR, wireless pace makers, direct to pharmacy prescriptions >agriculture Indoor farms, pink LED's, automated nutrient systems So I think it's quite the understatement >Of course tech can play a role Tech already plays a vital role and with out it we would not have the global economy and productivity levels that we currently enjoy.
- madengr 10y ago
  The original poster implies software, and software (the main product of SV) is in a bubble which will burst.
- bhauer 10y ago
  I'm in the tech industry, so I am sympathetic to your view, but you must realize this argument is silly. Energy requires technology? Yes. Technology also requires energy to power... well, everything. Manufacturing requires technology? Yes. Technology also requires manufacturing to build our phones, tablets, computers, Teslas, etc. You can see where I'm going here. The economy is a network. No single node is the focal point around which everything else orbits.
  - sillypog 10y ago
    "People" might be the central node.
    - pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
      so you're saying the iphone is made out of people? now it makes sense why they have nets around the manufacturing buildings... gotta recycle those suicides.
    - smpetrey 10y ago
      Yep. This right here. So what happens when AI becomes is in the focal length of simple adoption? AI isn't even affecting .0000000005% of the economy yet. But when it comes, it going to unleash of fury of change never before seen. To go full circle, there's a reason that the "tech industry" carries a big weight. It's because the Information Age is coming to a close, and who knows what's next.
npalli 10y ago
Your article is from Q1/2015. Since then the energy sector has imploded in a catastrophic manner. Pretty amusing to think it is driving the US economy (directly) right now. It is by far causing the biggest loss in jobs and profits. Look at the market cap by sectors right now. https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/markets_sectors/sectors/sectors_in_market.jhtml https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/markets_sectors/sec... Tech. is second only to finance. Given finance is going through it's own troubles, fully expect tech to take over the top sector of the economy in the next five years.
- novocaine 10y ago
  Market cap != economic driver.
  - amsheehan 10y ago
    Market cap !!= economic drive either.
- jeanduluoz 10y ago
  How do you think that normalized interest rates will affect your prediction?
  - StanislavPetrov 10y ago
    That depends on what you consider "normalized rates". There's a very good argument to be made that ~0% (if not less) is the new "normalized rate", given the massive debt bubbles that saturate every segment of the economy, both public and private.
valarauca1 10y ago
>Manufacturing The data you cite is from 2009->2015 so it's just showing the recovery from the great recession. In reality Manufacturing hasn't created jobs since the 1970's. >Healthcare Their lobby wrote a bill and gave it to the GOP which ran it as Romney Care. Obama couldn't get anything passed so now we call it Obama Care. So yes legally requiring all people to have something does ensure more people buy that thing. >Energy Is having a turbulent time now that you can export US Oil/Gas. Renewables continue to grow at a steady pace tho.
- enjo 10y ago
  >In reality Manufacturing hasn't created jobs since the 1970's. That's true, but output has steadily grown over those years.
  - valarauca1 10y ago
    Which once again confirms the importance of the Technology Sector. None of that would be possible without Micro-controllers, programmers, or PC's to run their compilers/ladder logic programs on.
    - edejong 10y ago
      And the micro-controllers operating sensors, using chemistry. The chemistry being better controlled by using new materials. The materials being better researched, using high-precision optics. The optics being more precise, using modern physics. Just a random walk around technologies. Yes, computing technology has played a major role in helping us communicate our advances and better model the next iteration. However, it's myopic to regard it as the sole driver.
odonnellryan 10y ago
I don't agree with you. Energy, Manufacturing, Transportation, and Healthcare are all very heavily entrenched in technology. I would Agriculture may be "not so tech" still, but look at the amazing advancements in GMOs and equipment that are helping us feed our growing population. Plus, who runs the infrastructure? Tech companies. What do they use when they need stuff? Other tech companies, like Google (apps), Amazon (AWS). They build their solutions using products like Facebook's React...
- fapjacks 10y ago
  Agriculture may be "not so tech"? My friend, let's go back to my hometown some weekend. I'll introduce you to the most technological people I know (they're farmers).
- dosgonlogs 10y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ugXLd78JU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ugXLd78JU how cows are milked now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBmFH7fNxnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBmFH7fNxnA grape harvesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlaNDm88yZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlaNDm88yZo Autonomous harvesting robot for Sweet-pepper. Highly recommend watching the cow milking one.
pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
I'd have to point out that "driving the US economy" is not related to "growth".[1] add in tech playing the MAJOR role in the MAJOR parts of growth in those industries, and you just look like a silly disagree monkey wasting everyones' time. poo on you, shit monkey. [1]http./duh
lottin 10y ago
It's very misleading indeed. And regardless of what has grown the most lately, the top industry in the US by far is Finance (19% of GDP) followed by Government and Manufacturing (12% each). 'Tech' is scattered across various industries, I think for the most part is included in Business Services and in Information. It's simply not nearly as important as some seem to think it is. The data is available here http://www.bea.gov/regional/index.htm http://www.bea.gov/regional/index.htm
bogomipz 10y ago
I think that every company is a tech company now in the sense that tech has fundamentally changed the way people do business. I think the old guard media is quick to cheer on a sense of impending doom for tech industry. This is worth a read even if it is from a SV insider: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240531119034809045765122...
PopsiclePete 10y ago
Healthcare and Banking usually have huge IT departments. They don't just use typewriters and store customer data on paper just because they're not the software industry. Is there any company anymore that doesn't have at least an IT department? Heck, most of them have their own software divisions. Let's not even get started on companies like Lockheed Martin/Honeywell - how many programmers do you think they employ?

roofer 10y ago

This is exactly how people were thinking about housing market back in 2005. It's a bedrock on which US economy is built and blah, blah, blah... Yes tech is the future - AI, VR, and etc. But most of us are writing web and mobile apps, and lots of those apps are not that useful.

300bps 10y ago
Do some side work for a local business and you'll see how powerful code can be. I did 20 hours side work per week for four years and small projects were able to replace teams of employees that used to hand calculate and process work items. Those teams were able to be moved to other tasks saving companies millions of dollars per year while still growing rapidly.
- roofer 10y ago
  Good point
- jmagoon 10y ago
  Same--when you work for a large company you see that a ton of development is about large companies cutting cost through automation. Its unfortunate to be a hatchet man, but that work always exists in economical downtime.
- cachemiss 10y ago
  While it certainly is more efficient to automate those employees away, in my experience they are rarely assigned to new work, they are simply let go. Whether or not that's good or bad morally or for the economy I won't speculate on. Most companies are actually quite overstaffed for various reasons, freeing up X employees in department Y doesn't mean they slide over to department Z, Z already has more than enough employees usually.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  "Those teams were able to be moved to other tasks saving companies millions of dollars per year while still growing rapidly." Although in all likelihood, they were fired.

jonnathanson 10y ago

The success of technology companies isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. Google is about as different from any given startup as it is from John Deere. Even within the realm of "unicorns," there are those with actual business models (profitable or otherwise), and those without. What we're really talking about here is the end of a half-decade of basically free capital, which has been funneled into startups willy nilly. As a result, a lot of startups that never should have been funded will fail. Other startups that probably deserved funding, but were massively overfunded and overvalued will also face difficulties. Some startups will survive. Similarly, some big tech companies are struggling to right-size the investments they made when their effective cost of capital was radically different from where it is today. Some will be fine. Etc.

adventured 10y ago

> 4 out of 5 of the largest companies on earth are tech firms, and none of them were even close to that position 10 years ago There's an exception to that group. Microsoft was one of the largest companies by market cap ten years ago. They've been very consistently in that spot since 1998.

odonnellryan 10y ago

It's true. And others on the top ten are almost-tech companies: Exxon Johnson & Johnson General Electric AT&T Exxon has a really large research arm, so do Johnson and Johnson. Maybe not tech as this forum traditionally thinks about it, but I'd consider it tech. GE and AT&T have great research arms, as well, and they are much more tech: focused a lot on communications, storage, and hardware.

petra 10y ago
Also the tech industry is deeply behind the IOT(platforms), and IOT is dispersed through the economy.

mbesto 10y ago

> 4 out of 5 of the largest companies on earth are tech firms Tech isn't really an industry... Amazon = Retail (and probably another 10-20% software and software services) Google = Advertising (and probably another 10-20% non advertising) Facebook = Advertising Microsoft = Software / Services (but very diversified) Also, companies like Bechtel and Saudi Aramco are not publicly traded but could be considered in the "largest" category. We just don't know what their market cap is because they're private.

adrr 10y ago
These firms probably have software engineering as a core competency. I think any firm going forward that doesn't have software engineering as a core competency will get eaten by a "tech" company who does.

grillvogel 10y ago

>and none of them were even close to that position 10 years ago I think you are failing to see the overall picture. 10 years is not a long time, those companies could fall out of favor at any time. yes software runs the world, but is it facebook and twitter software or software that runs industrial services and backend systems? do you really think Uber is more important than something like general electric or dow chemical?

cylinder 10y ago

Software runs the world does not mean software is not in a bubble. Housing / real estate are the backbone of the economy. Everyone needs buildings. Does that mean it could never be in a bubble?