And from what I recall, even then they are more of an exception to the rule (something about not toeing the line on father-in-laws ideas...)

Selçuk Bayraktar their CTO got a PhD from MIT.[1]

If I recall it right Turkiye wasn’t allowed to buy some military equipment and they made it themselves.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar

This certainly helped and that's why he is producing drones instead of crossbows, but the secret sauce is dictator father in law.

Since when is Erdogan considered a dictator?