This is a terribly misinformed take. If you throw enough resources at Python then sure, you can probably get adequate throughput. The problem is that in finance a lot of problems require you to think about latency, which is a total non-starter for Python
It's not clear which company you're referring to, but
- Instagram was at one point a startup. It's common for startups to write in a scripting language to optimize for speed of adding features. Then if you grow or get acquired, the scripting language often eventually gets replaced by a language more optimized for maintenance cost, safety, and/or speed.
- Data scientists often only really know scripting languages, and at any rate scripting languages are useful for prototyping algorithms that need to change daily. Hence a lot of hedge funds use Python. For code that is stable and really matters for performance purposes, it's common for funds to use C/C++ or even FPGAs.
I have no doubts that we are able to handle our requirements with python, but if there's a better way, does it not make sense to investigate?
A skilled carpenter can undoubtedly use a hammer instead of a screwdriver. This doesn't mean that I should insist they use a hammer when a screwdriver would do a better job.
I believe they’re referring to the hedge fund. Lower latency requirement is a confusing way of phrasing it as lower latency is a higher bar. But generally most hedge funds do not need to operate at the speed Instagram does.