Well, the roots of the technology came from PA Semi, which was founded with big names who had a long tradition and experience in the industry. They specialized in high performance power efficient processors for embedded, which happens to fit very well with what smartphones need. But their very first design (a PowerPC front end, before Apple bought them) was already quite impressive.

Strap a lot of cash and volume behind that after they get bought, and the results speak for themselves. There is no shame in it. Intel has been stumbling at the moment, but others were stumbling in the decade from Core 2 to Skylake.