When the president, the treasury secretary and other Biden administration officials insisted this week that the American economy is not currently in a recession, they were mocked for weaseling out of bad news on a technicality. The Commerce Department announced on Thursday that the broadest measure of economic activity, gross domestic product, fell for a second quarter in a row — meeting a widely held, though unofficial, definition of recession. It is true, as the Biden folks argued, that the nation’s official recession arbiter, the National Bureau of Economic Research, has yet to call one, because it relies on many more signals. Still, it sure sounded as if the Biden team was splitting hairs.

Over the past few days, though, I’ve spent more time than is healthy listening to C.E.O.s expound on their businesses during quarterly corporate earnings calls. (What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good time.) And I was surprised by what I heard. The C.E.O.s convinced me that the Biden people — not to mention Jay Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, who also said this week that a recession has probably not yet begun — have a point.

The economy is in a really weird place. There are definitely signs of trouble. Yet at some of the biggest companies in the country — especially in the tech industry — business is hardly all glum. And even at companies that are struggling, the numbers aren’t nearly as bad as investors had feared.