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Douglas_Knight comments on Open Thread, Apr. 27 - May 3, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I see Google and Apple as marginal examples - they don't exactly fit into my schema, but they don't exactly break my schema either. Apple's success depended on two key insights contributed by the two founders. Jobs saw that a market for personal computers could exist, and Wozniak saw a way to repackage existing computer technology cheaply and usably enough for the customers in that market. Google did build a better search engine, but they also saw a new way to make money with search, and it's not clear which insight was more important.
If Google's business model were more important than its technology, that wouldn't cause its technology to cease to exist. Your original claim was that startups don't create technology, which is a very, very different claim than people who want to become rich should pursue business models, rather than technology.
But, actually, I don't think that Google's business model was more important to its earning power than its technology. Many people have copied its business model, but they don't have the scale of being the most popular website, so they don't make as much money. Part of that is that other companies have copied its basic search technology, but the first-mover advantage has turned Google's early technology into an enduring brand advantage.
Also, my guess is that Google had better technology 10 years ago for running scalable infrastructure than Microsoft has today. While that may have contributed to their bottom line, I'm not sure it contributed much to their popularity.