Technology adoption is almost always driven by the people, not the technology. The OP is a big fan of Clojure, having used it elsewhere, so its no surprise they

Technology adoption is almost always driven by the people, not the technology. The OP is a big fan of Clojure, having used it elsewhere, so its no surprise they brought Clojure to their new job. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that Clojure is a bad language. I really enjoy using Lisp-like languages! I also enjoy modern statically typed languages (and on balance prefer them). My experience is that having good people and avoiding bad technology choices (e.g. choosing Ruby for high throughput and low latency environments) is the secret to success. Stories like these are invariably sold as technology successes (and, equally, technology is blamed when things go bad.) I believe the reality is more that better technology attracts better people. It's the better people and chance to avoid legacy that gives success.