IMO, web startups choose Java when: 1) founders are most familiar with Java 2) founders are more comfortable with top-down engineering practices and not with

IMO, web startups choose Java when: 1) founders are most familiar with Java 2) founders are more comfortable with top-down engineering practices and not with bottom-up, release-early release-often approach. 3) core technology depends heavily on non-trivial open source Java libraries.