I'm only a hobby Pharoer (my day job as electrical power engineer is not programming) but on the mail-list I see newcomers describe Pharo as "fun" and as "a breath of fresh air" compared to their day job. You would get a better first hand answer on pharo-users mail list (lists.pharo.org). But in the meantime, you can see commercial funding for Pharo an growing - slide 7... https://www.slideshare.net/esug/pharo-consortium-v20