[mg]

Using a language with a faster runtime makes the system run faster. But it does not compound. So you are limited to a ceiling at about an order of magnitude faster execution.

Making better decisions on a daily basis compounds. You evolve towards a better architecture. Which can make the code multiple orders of magnitude faster.

One of many examples: In a complex system, developers often have a blurry vision of what can be cached, in which situations it can be cached, and how cache invalidation should be done. While in a more elegant system, the borders between different approaches to caching are clearer. Leading to the more elegant system being multiple orders of magnitude faster as it can leverage the different caching layers (in memory cache, on disk cache, the CDN ...) more effectively.

[TeMPOraL]

This doesn't sound like argument in favor of Python, though. In my experience, Python code quickly reaches the level of an impenetrable word salad, at which point all the compounding stops.