Ruby has very similar expressive power to LISP... I'm pretty sure that what PG was trying to say was that given two languages X and Y that if X is more powerfu

Ruby has very similar expressive power to LISP... I'm pretty sure that what PG was trying to say was that given two languages X and Y that if X is more powerful (expressive) than Y it will be better for startups. Not that if you don't use X there is no way your startup will be successful, and certainly not that if you don't use LISP you won't be successful.