[evgen]

By using Python they were able to ship, which is why you have heard of Reddit and they were able to grow enough to have a concurrency problem (something Python still sucks at); the number of sites of any significance that started by using Java for page delivery is probably somewhere around 0.

[empthought]

Oh cmon, LinkedIn started with Java.

[rbanffy]

And even after this long it doesn't work quite right.

It's a miracle they shipped it at all.

[pjmlp]

They would be able to ship in any language, that is what software engineering is all about.

[rbanffy]

True, but would they be able to ship within the window they could become relevant? Would they be able to add the required features?

You can ship your own clone of Reddit next week, with blazingly fast code, running on two tiny VMs and supporting more load than Reddit, but would it be successful?

[pjmlp]

Probably, depending on the sales/marketing teams.

[thomasz]

Reddit was written in lisp, they switched to python only after having initial success.