Sweden is a weird country. It is so controlled and everything is so straight, that it almost feels like there are no real humans. I couldn't imagine living there, if I was one of those people, who don't conform to the worldview as defined and constructed by the establishment.
The hyper-individualism, I think, is just the flip side of hyper-authoritarianism. Swedish people are almost happy to pay taxes, Swedish people are some of the most active voters in the OECD (82% turnout last election, let's hope tomorrow's election is no worse!), and Swedish road safety policy is now a Swedish export.
It is indeed a very unusual combination, but I think it's what happens when you mix prosperity, democracy, and secularism for a long time. I hope that the recent waves of misinformation and polarizing media won't ruin it. But it isn't looking good.
I find strange this assumption I sometimes read here that having a sense of collective means losing your individuality.
That said, I enjoyed many of the same things that you mention about Sweden. The people I worked with were highly educated, pragmatic, and often not willing to make bad engineering decisions if there was no reason to. It was easy to have very in-depth conversations with Swedes about many topics without resulting to emotional attacks or divisiveness.
In general I think what has helped Swedes the most (and what grandparent has hinted at) is that Swedish citizens, at least everyone I met, are very internationally minded in that they are absolutely voracious travelers and embrace people of other cultures rather easily (there are the Swedish Democrats, of course, but this mentality is still a relative minority in Sweden). This willingness to interact internationally and deal with other cultures is what I think has helped propel Sweden to the kind of startup success we are seeing here.
The American Dream is alive in Sweden. The prime minister is a foster child and welder by trade. Daniel Ek and Markus Persson both grew up under less than ideal conditions and are now billionaires. And if one thinks Sweden is too small most people have the tools to move, like Fredrik Eklund.
That said, it isn't like 10-15 years ago when it seemed like Sweden was spared from many of the worlds problems. Housing inequality, dysfunctional politics, call for easy jobs, lesser standards, less access to social safety net etc. All large but common problems that make "the deal" a lot less appealing. Tons of people moving to UK, Berlin or Norway for work or just trying to have a decent life.
I do think it is a bit of a bubble. To many cocktail parties, consulting companies and incubators, not enough substance. It isn't really clear whether there will actually be a lot of new extraordinaire companies. I think most people are more concerned about their mortgage.
Because if there is anything I would attribute to recent Sweden's success in technology it just that in end of '90s, early '00s Sweden was a really good deal. A decent apartment, good employment and good infrastructure was all available. A lot of people in technology didn't even bother with university. But nothing was "glamorous". So if you wanted to do something you had to do it yourself.
Today everyone is looking for the guarantee. Going to school for 5-6 years, huge mortgage for the rest of their life and chasing money in consulting. I get it, just unlikely to produce anything different.
Seriously though, most swedes are very forgiving about others world views. As long as you sort your trash properly.