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.
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.