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Netflix is not a tech company (2019)

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Re: Netflix is not a tech company (2019)

#141

Post by stumpedonalog »

Areading314 wrote: post #3

We should stop thinking in terms of "tech companies" and think of them in terms of "companies that use tech with a high degree of success". Ultimately any company that makes money is not a tech company because pure technology on its own does not make a business. Also, with the right incentives and management it is possible, although hard, for legacy companies to start using tech better to compete.

Yeah my idea of what a tech company is: a company who is product first and that product is digital.

Re: Netflix is not a tech company (2019)

#143

Post by 3np »

Areading314 wrote: post #3

We should stop thinking in terms of "tech companies" and think of them in terms of "companies that use tech with a high degree of success". Ultimately any company that makes money is not a tech company because pure technology on its own does not make a business. Also, with the right incentives and management it is possible, although hard, for legacy companies to start using tech better to compete.

How about TSMC, Intel, Dell, or Microsoft? I don't see the usefulness in arguing that running a successful business means it can't be a tech company.

Re: Netflix is not a tech company (2019)

#144

Post by bluetomcat »

auggierose wrote: post #118
bcrosby95 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people wouldn't consider car companies tech companies, but they definitely do R&D and directly sell the technology that results from that inside their cars. Probably because people don't even have a good definition of "tech". Everything we use is tech. Even books. Some of it is old, some of it is new. But people's definition of tech mostly centers around when they were born. As a software developer, I mostly car…

Everybody I know considers a car company a tech company. I think there exists a strange Silicon Valley definition of tech out there. But maybe my German bias shows. I mean, most of the stuff in SV barely qualifies as tech.

The SV definition of tech leans towards "a user-centric service delivered over the web, with some clever software solutions behind it to handle a lot of data and users".

Re: Netflix is not a tech company (2019)

#145

Post by mandeepj »

I’ve always thought of Netflix as a media company.

I believe a simple approach to find out what type of a company - a particular entity is - is to seek what comes to your mind when you think about that co.

Toyota - Cars: so, they are a car company.

Microsoft - Windows. So, they are a software/tech co.

Google - Search. But, they are part of a conglomerate.

Re: Netflix is not a tech company (2019)

#146

Post by 3np »

hyperpallium2 wrote: post #120
Areading314 wrote: post #3

We should stop thinking in terms of "tech companies" and think of them in terms of "companies that use tech with a high degree of success". Ultimately any company that makes money is not a tech company because pure technology on its own does not make a business. Also, with the right incentives and management it is possible, although hard, for legacy companies to start using tech better to compete.

A 'tech company' is that is internally built of software, so it is (theoretically) as easy to evolve as software - which is not that easy, except compared with anything else. So, amazon, stripe, airbnb, uber, reddit, github etc. Perhaps a bit like when companies started to be built around the new-fangled telephone instead of telegrams and dictated letters. More responsive and free-form. This does not guarantee a stro…

Why limit it to software? Manufacturing technological hardware makes you a tech company for any meaningful definition of the word, no?

Re: Netflix is not a tech company (2019)

#147

Post by ses1984 »

travoc wrote: post #24
ses1984 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech isn’t just content delivery. It’s also extracting useful information out of their customers’ habits so they know what to license, what to renew, how much to pay for it, etc.

Is that what’s happening? Because it seems like they’re still funding an awful lot of flops to find a couple of successes.

They're not optimizing for fewer flops, they're optimizing to attain and retain subscribers for the least amount of money. If that means 20 flops for every success, who cares?

Re: Netflix is not a tech company (2019)

#148

Post by cletus »

Here's the framework I use: "tech companies" are those where tech still plays a significant factor in the growth of the company such that it's important to an executive level.

Example: Google is still a tech company. As much as some might view search as "solved" (just like it was when Google was founded I might add), search continues to get better. Tech still plays a significant role in the actual core business (ie advertising) too.

I once again return to the Steve Jobs take on why Xerox failed [1]. An effective monopoly devalued the tech such that Xerox became a sales and finance company.

So, returning to Netflix. I agree Netflix isn't a tech company anymore because Netflix ultimately is about serving several thousand VODs and that problem is solved. Now Netflix's core business is about making content, licensing content and acquiring and retaining customers.

Obviously doing this (or anything) at scale is a lot harder than it sounds but at the end of the day Youtube is monumentally more technically challenging than Netflix due to the number of videos, the number of viewers, the advertising and live streaming.

"Tech company" is still a useful classifier IMHO.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlBjNmXvqIM

Re: Netflix is not a tech company (2019)

#149

Post by thaumasiotes »

mandeepj wrote: post #145

I’ve always thought of Netflix as a media company. I believe a simple approach to find out what type of a company - a particular entity is - is to seek what comes to your mind when you think about that co. Toyota - Cars: so, they are a car company. Microsoft - Windows. So, they are a software/tech co. Google - Search. But, they are part of a conglomerate.

Why is Microsoft a "software company" but Google a "conglomerate"? What's the difference?

Re: Netflix is not a tech company (2019)

#150

Post by musingsole »

saalweachter wrote: post #27
paxys wrote: post #6

While you can make that argument today, Netflix as a company is 24 years old. It got to its current position not by spending $15B/yr on original content (which it can afford to do now) but purely based on a superior and novel tech experience for its users. Of course eventually all discussions of this nature devolve into the intricate definition of "tech company", and in the absence of one that is agreed upon, bringin…

Eh, as a user Netflix original content is a large part of why I still have a subscription. I used Netflix back when it was mailing me DVDs, and loved the online streaming back in the halcyon days when it seemed like they had everything . Then came the dark days when content owners began pulling their IP from Netflix and scattering it all over the internet behind a dozen different options that offered them more money…

> It didn't matter what their UX or uptime was or how smooth their video codecs, they didn't have enough content I wanted to watch.

Netflix has developed a novel data system (as evidenced by papermill) that is likely responsible for countless decisions that manifested the content which brought you back. I don't know first hand but I suspect data is integrated into their everyday processes in ways most companies can't even dream of. Does that make them a technology company again?

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