What is (and was) Google tech? I naively thought Google didn't have a praised stack.

Back then it was mostly Java, Python and C++.

They even made a Java-based framework that would generate Javascript, GWT. Orkut was rewritten to use in 2009.

I used to use GWT. It was such a mess to work with, but an interesting mess.

Well it used what was available at the time. Which was not a lot, that it even worked is insane

We still have it running somewhere. Not pretty but zero issues for a largish GUI

But also a highly specific Linux runtime environment, distributed storage, etc.

Yeah, internally it was, uh, an issue.

Just before launch there was a attempt to hide that it was google.