According to JetBrains, their motivations for creating an entirely new programming language were threefold:
- They wanted a more productive language for the JVM than was currently available. Existing solutions such as Java or Scala either lacked modern language features or suffered from slow compile times.
- They expected Kotlin's adoption to drive sales of IntelliJ.
- It was hoped that the increased discussion and awareness of the company would lead to greater trust in JetBrains itself and their philosophies around building quality development tools.