I very much think of Garmin as a tech company.
If you happen to use paper in your company and send printed advertising to customers, but you actually rent vacations homes, you're not a paper company. Even if paper is a hot new industry and companies that sell paper are receiving high valuations, you are still not a paper company. Even if you buy a ton more printers than you need and really produce a lot of paper internally and go to paper conferences and talk about how much paper you use, you are still not a paper company.
It's not a SaaS, it's not a web service thing. Do we count as "tech" in the modern parlance?
Even AWS is just a rental company or private utility when you strip away, "happens to need a lot of tech".
> Every company is a technology company, no matter what product or service it provides. The companies that embrace this fact are the ones that shape our world.
> Today, no company can make, deliver or market its product efficiently without technology. While smart phones and the internet used to be cutting edge, these days, new application code release dates and time to market for new technologies are shrinking. This is forcing companies accustomed to a four-year release cycle to adopt to change faster. Businesses must learn how to integrate technology release cycles into their production and service cycles.
(and an earlier version of it) https://www.forbes.com/sites/oreillymedia/2014/05/13/every-c...
In that way every business is a software business and if they’re serious about their business they will find ways to be a software and tech business to get things how they want or need for their competitive advantage.
The second difference I noticed is that people actually understand what my company does, because I can say "we research [disease X]" rather than "we're building a best-in-class, b2b SaaS product/platform ecosystem that augments existing teams, but to be honest, we're just trying to demonstrate product-market fit for investors so we can get our second round, and ultimately get acquired by one of the big players".
"we sell stock"
1. To work on a stable product. At startups, I never got to work on the same product through multiple versions across several years. I wanted the experience of launching something, then iterating on it. To become an expert in a market and develop long-term relationships with users or customers. All the startups I'd been in either failed or pivoted within a couple years, and all the consulting work I'd done with startups was always parachuting in to help on something and then leaving soon after.
2. As mentioned, to work on something more fulfilling than SaaS products. No shade on anyone who works on these, they are often really fun and exciting. But, my last job was trying to sell a yearly $60k subscription service to companies so that they could lay off members of their team and replace them with our product. My current job is helping scientists who are researching a very nasty disease that has directly affected my family. Not only can I explain what my current company does a lot more easily, I can honestly say I am there for more than the money or how good it looks on my resume.
3. Less work. My previous job had been described—by leadership, with a wink and a nod—as 'a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie'. That is, work really hard until we get PMF, then if we get that, work even harder so that we can get acquired. At the end of that, maybe my stock options would be worth something, but the owners and investors certainly would get a nice payday. I'm in my 40s now, I'm not going to work myself like a dog anymore, I kinda just want to have a nice, easy job, as long as I can feel good about doing it.
Evidently Walmart employs 1.6 million in the US and 2.1 million worldwide: https://corporate.walmart.com/askwalmart/how-many-people-wor...
Even more mind-blowing, there are some ~165 million workers in the US, so nearly one percent of all US workers are employed by Walmart.
It’s not “prestigious” but my resume has certainly accreted some fairly lucrative buzzwords.
I loved it! The pay was much lower (50 to 100k), but generally livable, and the people were awesome -- folks from all walks of life, not all tech bros, a lot of women, etc. Good work life balance (I've worked a total of maybe 6-7 hours of overtime in my whole career), no weekends or holidays, no crunch. No bonuses or equity either, but that didn't bother me.
But more than anything, I got to work in interesting verticals, whether it's alongside energy engineers, battery experts, world-renowned conservation scientists, archeologists, etc. People who love what they work on, making small but meaningful contributions to the real world (as opposed to like enshittified ad tech or crypto pyramids).
Would strongly recommend, if you can get over the lower pay (like you don't have a family or mortgage yet) and the lack of prestige (you're just another minion in the machine, not a privileged SWE). It's a lot of fun, though you also lose the opportunity to work with experts in your field (who are usually at proper tech companies), exchanging depth for breadth. It's not for everyone, but I wouldn't have had it any other way.
Update: two more advantages…
1. Technical interviews are far less grueling. Fewer applications mean a more personal and realistic interview process.
2. More stability through the business cycle. A small engineering department in a medium to large company is more likely to weather layoffs than a Big Tech firm looking to cut costs.
Software companies have beautiful margins. Their incremental cost is practically zero, their biggest expense is headcount for R&D, etc.
Non-software companies have to deal with gross things like inventory, lead times, logistics, shipping, RMA, etc etc... You know, the dirty details of not having the luxury of literally just selling information/bits.
Software companies great margins mean that employees can capture a larger share of that (because they create so much value). Lower-margin businesses can't, so the pay isn't as good.
On the other hand, it also context-dependent. Let's say you're looking for a job opportunity as a software engineer/developer/programmer/..., how much priority would you put on whether the company has tangible inventory?
I think the ambiguity in the term "tech industry" is one reason related discussions flourish.
