They’ll believe that a computer vision company is a dinosaur because they’re using C++ and a glorified CRUD startup is hip and relevant because it uses Rust. It doesn’t help that the anemic-ness of some domains doesn’t set in until 1-2 years later.
Often it's all just out of date.
There are no silver bullets and the only way to get an order of magnitude improvement is iterated marginal improvements. That something is at best a marginal improvement shouldn't be taken for a lack of innovation.
> "As a principal engineer, how do you make sure your company stays at the forefront of innovation?"
This is most likely about using all the shiny new technologies in a rapidly changing "forefront of innovation". The article simply isn't about building innovative products and services.
Of course, choosing boring technologies is one of the ways that you can help save engineering brain-cycles for the actual innovative core product or service you're building.