I have a lot of love for CF. But when I talked to someone who actually knows about the stuff, the business plan of all fusion startups is basically to sell know-how/IP, once a state actor decides to go at it.

That's a good plan, but ultimately, it's going to be a state backed (that's why I have "non-state backed ones" qualifier). CF is going to have a reactor with fusion with Q>1, but commercial product?

China is working on MSR. It has employs something like 700 Phds and 700 support personel for over a decade and has only recently made a research reactor. That's what I consider a serious effort (and that's for far simpler technology).

In my opinion, people underestimate how brutally hard it is to make new technology to work reliably. E.g. Superphenix, sodium cooled reactor had a capacity factor of 7.9% over a decade of production. That was after they had a demo reactor Phoenix with capacity factor 65%.