I've covered Tesla for over a decade and for that entire time, I've constantly insisted that it isn't a Silicon Valley tech company, but rather a carmaker. Just like General Motors, Toyota, Ford, or Mercedes-Benz, just with electric motors instead of internal-combustion engines.
Wrong! So wrong!
But not because Tesla is actually a Silicon Valley tech company. It isn't. Silicon Valley doesn't really create technology companies anymore; instead, it creates companies that sit on top of the internet — mainly the mobile internet these days — and sell attention-spans to advertisers and services to businesses.
In effect, they're media companies whose content is generated for free by users: Google searches, Facebook posts, and so on. Apple is an exception, but there we have a design firm, effectively, that lives on the exceptional profit margins of its premium devices, chiefly the iPhone.
There have always been powerful media companies and media conglomerates, but nobody ever confused them with old-economy technology companies, such as automakers, aviation giants, or even the first wave of computer companies, such as IBM.
Now that we're something like four decades into the "tech" transformation of the economy, we've forgotten what actual technology companies look like. The best example, from the previous century, is General Electric, which can trace its roots to Thomas Edison and the late 19th century. GE is the quintessential American conglomerate.
But it's importance, while still critical, has been fading. The successor, it dawned on me a few weeks ago, is Tesla.
It should have been obvious to me all along. Here's why:
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