The article makes an attempt to answer the question in the title (cheap computers forced Eastern European programmers to be really efficient) but I am reminded of Paul Graham's "Beating the Averages" essay [1]:<p>> It must have seemed to our competitors that we had some kind of secret weapon-- that we were decoding their Enigma traffic or something. In fact we did have a secret weapon, but it was simpler than they realized. No one was leaking news of their features to us. We were just able to develop software faster than anyone thought possible.<p>PG and Robert Morris could do that because they had a "secret weapon" (LISP). The Skype developers had one too [2]:<p>> Delphi was chosen because our first senior UI developer was very skilled at Delphi (besides dozen other languages-environments) and we saw D as most productive, fastest, efficient way to build our app given our team/lead developer skills and also getting very good UX on MSWin platform.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-programming-language-was-Skype-originally-written-in?s=1" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/What-programming-language-was-Skype-or...</a>
My favorite is how Skype did things like making calls using SYSENTER and reading the BIOS using NTVDM before MS bought them. Of course, you won't see MS employees talk much about it.
Particular how fates of post-Communist countries like Poland/Czechia/Slovakia/Lithuania vs Estonia dispersed. The former chose a way of low-cost, outsourcing and offshoring for global hegemons, many emigrated to developed countries like UK or Germany - cutting off their chance of success. One from post-Communist country will always be an underdog there trying to navigate the complex realities, business connections, regulations.<p>Meanwhile Estonia - extraordinary luck, lots of talent. Perhaps because it's a small country, cosy environment, one is less likely to emigrate? Proximity to and cultural similarities with Finland? Sad that both - Kazaa and Skype had become its own blown egg with only the brands surviving, Americans killed both.