I found a blog-post that tries to do this sort of comparison: http://codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-exploration-of-angellist-data http://cod

I found a blog-post that tries to do this sort of comparison: http://codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-exploration-of-angellist-data http://codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-ex... I think there are two valid reasons for choosing non-mainstream language. First, you know the language and want to work in it. A.f.a.i.k that was the main reason why PG chose it to build his company. Second, if you know the technology is a good fit for your product, for example WhatsApp and Erlang seem to be good example for this.