I think lots of startups are prone to something similar to the "second version" problem. They bring in a really good senior developer as a CTO. This person fin

I think lots of startups are prone to something similar to the "second version" problem. They bring in a really good senior developer as a CTO. This person finally has the chance to set their mark and for once build the perfect setup, no legacy systems to take into consideration, no outdated corporate directives limiting languages or architecture. This time it's going to be perfect. Other aspects tend to be forgotten: - The startup might not require a very sophisticated tech stack. Most of what needs to be built might be lots of html forms, user handling and a few other thing that can be done in any language. - They and up with a pretty advanced stack of best-for-the-job tools and languages that forces the company to compete with lots of other trendy startup for a very small pool of highly paid highly qualified developers. - Some tooling and functionality might have to be built from scratch compared to more widespread languages. A healthy question to ask before picking a more specialized stack is "What do we really gain compared to building this on Ruby/Rails, Django/Phython or Symfony/PHP?"