> What I am saying is that a sizable portion of academia uses a variant of ML. Maybe it hasn't caught on in industry, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a community that uses it.
Academic communities tend to be scattered when it comes to software and the primary focus is on publishing papers rather than producing software that is useful to others. Also, I know a number of skilled academics that use functional languages, but they tend not to have an interest in changing into the industry, rather stay at university. So I wouldn't depend on them as source for recruiting.
Of course there are exceptions, e.g. OCaml Labs seems to be keen on producing well-written, usable software that can be used in industrial settings. The development of Mirage is a pretty exciting area.