I agree with all of this including his love of Python. Just replace Java with JVM language. Regarding Java's verbosity and time to develop, I can't recommend Kotlin enough.
Kotlin is indeed nice. I also like python; bit not for large projects. There are plenty of nice languages to choose from. When choosing, I recommend looking beyond the language at the library ecosystem, tools, etc. You need all of that and as it is a long term investment, you also need to look for continuity and momentum. You need that to ensure that you can still work five or ten years down the line.
If you pick something really new, tooling and libraries are typically a bit lacking. It's the reason why Java stays so popular. The language is a bit dated at this point but the tooling and library ecosystem are still top. I used it for more than 20 years before switching to Kotlin. With Kotlin you have the same level of awesome tooling and libraries but with a bit more modern language.
Beyond Java/Kotlin, there is of course lots to choose from but you get a significant downgrade in tooling. Jetbrains takes care of IDEs for Ruby, Python, Go, Rust, Javascript/Typescript, etc. and they are nice. But it's typically with a lot less refactorings, auto fixes, etc. than they provide for Java and Kotlin. It's just not on the same level and a bit of a downgrade in that sense. Out of those, Rust is the most disruptive IMHO. Worth investing in and a very solid library ecosystem.
