> PHP is faster than Ruby. It's not helpful to be faster than the language that the parent implied wasn't fast enough. I think the parent's point was that if

> PHP is faster than Ruby. It's not helpful to be faster than the language that the parent implied wasn't fast enough. I think the parent's point was that if the startup's raison d'etre involves "chew[ing] through TBs of data every hour", then choosing a language that can do that 10x faster than another might have a tremendous impact on cost and so the company's value. It might be the difference between successful or not. More generally, "it depends".