> In even the worst codebase there will be nuggets of usefulness that will accelerate the process. Isolated parts of the system that you've perfected. Exchange message decoders for example (ITCH, FIX/FAST, etc.). This is especially true when you, the genius who will be starting from scratch, has worked on it for a few years. I assume he was doing something useful in his time at Goldman.
The new system was going to be written in a different language than what Goldman uses.