I think the problem lies with the American polity, values, and business environment, and not industry leadership per se. Smart new grads generally go where the money is, and for the last 20 years that has meant either finance or big data firms that may have no interest in real technical progress.

> Smart new grads generally go where the money is, and for the last 20 years that has meant either finance or big data firms

Software TC has outpaced high finance for almost 15 years now, especially for the kinds of candidates who had the option between the two.

I went to one of those universities where CS grads had the option between being a Quant at Citadel, an APM at Google, or an SWE working on an ML research team. Most CS students chose 2 and 3 because the hours worked were shorter than 1 and the hourly wage and TC was largely comparable.

> may have no interest in real technical progress.

Hard to make technical progress as (eg.) a cybersecurity company when most CS programs do not teach OS development beyond a cursory introduction to systems program, and in a lot of cases don't introduce computer architecture beyond basic MIPS.

The talent pipeline for a lot of subdisciplines of CS and CE has been shot domestically for the past 10-15 years when curricula were increasingly watered down.