What's missing from this explanation is that the corporate tax rate was also much higher, but R&D dramatically cut down profit that would be taxed and was taxed lower. So large corporations like Bell Labs and co would basically say "do we give the government X in taxes, or do we spend X on research?". They chose research, so we got the technology that powers our world.

That, combined with stock buybacks and the general take over of Friedman-economics resulted in a far more focused short term thinking and outsourcing research as much as possible due to uncertain horizon risks.