> The same American business culture that produced Apple/Amazon/Alphabet/Microsoft/Meta/Tesla/etc? They seem to invest quite a bit in "technology".

Yeah. There can be sparks of innovation, but the overall trend seems to be squandering advantages for short term financial gains. And honestly, some of your examples aren't great: Telsa's probably going to lose to the likes of BYD (but for unusual leadership reasons); Microsoft seems to be losing former capability, which is reflected in many of its products (https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/windows-...); and I don't think Meta has done much besides sell ads.

IIRC, Chinese companies, on the other hand, tend not actually make very much money for their investors.

The sentiment I was countering was that American businesses do not invest in technology, nor do American business leaders think about the long term, and the examples surely show that. Successful or not, and selling something detrimental or not, they do spend many, many billions of dollars on bets that may not pay out.

You can even look to pharmaceutical companies for American business that have development timelines measured in the decades and investments measured in the billions. These aren't plays that executives profit from in 6 months, or maybe even 60 months. Real estate development is another business where investment timelines are in the decades.

I don't know enough about Chinese businesses, but I assume I cannot compare the motivations of Chinese business leaders to American business leaders, as Chinese business leaders seem less free than American businesses to capture profits for their investors.