> but still it was obviously the right way to go compared to JS or, god forbid, shell.

I just don't think this is true.

Frankly - it's hard to argue this at all (even today) given that JS is the dominate language on the planet, and it lacks types... as does python, which had a reputation for decades as THE language to use to teach new folks to code. Or take PHP which dominated server development for a LOOONG time: also lacks types. Ruby on Rails has a wonderful reputation as the "get shit done" framework: no types.

Types are good for modern software companies, where code size has ballooned up very high (common to work on a codebase with hundreds of thousands of lines) or teams are large (50+ developers) and terrible if you just want to hammer out something that works as a solo dev.

Do I like types today? Sure - the tooling is solid, and I work on large codebases with large teams.

Did I like types as a solo dev at 3 person startup? no.

It's still useful for things like onboarding the fourth person to your start-up. Good types get you half the way to good documentation.

> as does python, which had a reputation for decades as THE language to use to teach new folks to code

I am very perplexed by this. I am going through Neetcode's DSA course where he explains what RAM and arrays are, but then he goes on to say something like "but since we are going to use Python, none of this applies." Personally, I learned the most about how software really works from reading The Rust Programming Language. It not only teaches you how to program in Rust, but also how memory works, what a string really is, etc.

Those languages dominated because they were simple. Then they grew, and their users grew up, and realized that worse is better.

At a startup you can choose even fancier languages, since nobody is stopping you!