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0 pointsbyroot2y ago0 comments

> had a choice to say jump to Java or a JVM-based language and scrap Ruby altogether

As someone who joined Shopify 10 years ago, my perception is that it wasn't an option.

At the time competition was fierce and the priority was to get new features to grow.

If you are a free service Twitter, with a strong network effect, it makes sense to retool to reduce your costs, as it's a primary factor in profitability.

If you are a B2B paying service like Shopify with little to no network effect to keep your leading position, halting features for years while you re-tool, re-train etc is a death sentence.

My (hot) take is that if Shopify had decided to switch over to Java back in the day, Shopify may actually be a mostly dead company by now.

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Justsignedup2y ago

Thank you for that insight. I think that is really great to surface. If your product relies on the ability to spin up new features, then inefficiencies in operating costs can be eaten up by the fact that the company functions. If you don't spin up features that quickly but operational costs is king, then you make different decisions.

In any case, it has been a pleasure hearing insights from the inside. Thank you.

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