> I wonder what the criteria are as a private (if publicly-traded) enterpise to merit the security training treatment.
We had a large and growing operation in China which included development, not just sales. Even before Trump 1, there were signs our operations there were being targeted by Chinese intelligence, so we already were in contact with US intelligence. I wasn't in that loop in detail, just aware it was happening and considered a serious problem (most employees never even heard about it). We did later wind down most development in China. While there were several reasons, that was a major (though publicized) one.
AFAICT, my briefing wasn't 'mandatory' from the govt. It was coordinated through our IT dept but was definitely considered high-priority from a company perspective. I hadn't heard about the mtg request initially, probably because my admin team was doing the usual schedule filtering and prioritization. But I got a direct call from the IT VP on my cell in the evening to bring it to my attention so I could get it prioritized to happen before I went to China.
The company isn't FAANG / Mag 7 but definitely in the next tier down. You've almost certainly used more than one of the products and several of the technologies. With user bases in the tens of millions, we were definitely a top tier target and I had a C-level title even though I never had (or would want) access to root keys or anything like that.
In big public companies there's a group of a few dozen execs who have special stock trading restrictions above employees, managers and even directors and I was in that group, so I was used to getting some special extra security precautions. Stuff like IT coming to my house to install a special hardware VPN gateway (back before they were more commonplace). And those precautions were just insider trading and general IP concerns. So the call about the FBI mtg wasn't totally out of the blue.
> American technical economy as a valuable asset to the state
My sense is it was really from that kind of mindset. They consider securing American technological and economic leadership a crucial mission. In general, I think the public under-appreciates just are large a priority the 'economic mission' is for intelligence agencies of all countries - and the US was probably late to scaling that game behind the Russians, Chinese and even some European allies.
While it's fun to hear about the cool 'state secret' and 'spy vs spy' stuff like stealing weapons system designs, a lot of intelligence is pretty boring stuff about economic competitiveness and advantage in non-defense related industries like finance, consumer packaged goods, heavy machinery etc.