I’d concur with your assessment of British management culture and the class reasons for why it occurs. Ironically this kind of thing is also the reason why the U.K. has never produced a peer to any of the FAANGs
I think if you reify CP Snows thesis through the lens of the class system it turns out to be mostly correct.
> this kind of thing is also the reason why the U.K. has never produced a peer to any of the FAANGs
Well, ARM for one - but despite its incredible importance in the world, ARM isn't all that valuable because of their business-model. I was hoping that SoftBank and NVIDIA's purchase would make ARM more assertive in the marketplace and create value for themselves. I'm cautiously optimistic about their future though (as for the NVIDIA deal, why couldn't the UK let the deal go through but force NVIDIA to give the UK gov a non-expiring call-options to buy 51% of the company at the market-price but only in the interests of national-security or strategic-interest? That sounds reasonable.
In decades of the past I do think about what originally innovative companies like Sinclair, Amstrad, and others could have done to stay relevant for longer (which is difficult... their area in computers was entirely commoditized by the late-1990s)...
> Well, ARM for one - but despite its incredible importance in the world, ARM isn't all that valuable because of their business-model.
ARM I think fits an attempt to grow while operating within the constraints of the model that you mention above.
I was thinking of Madge Networks - once mentioned in the same breath as a small networking company called Cisco. Of course Madge went with ATM rather than Ethernet, but they also had blue-blooded management and would only hire engineers from Oxbridge (which is naturally going to limit both the outlook of your company and how fast you can grow).
I think if you reify CP Snows thesis through the lens of the class system it turns out to be mostly correct.