Super effecient .Net/SQL Server code
I recently heard of a site were the developer/owner bragged that he had minimal hardware to support his site (plentyoffish.com).  This site is listed as being in the top 50 in terms of traffic on Alexa. I am struggling to wrap my head around how something like that can be acomplished by doing what the developer/owner claims, writing super effient code using .Net and SQL Server.

How do you write code so effecient, with a language that has a fairly large amount overhead and with limited harware resources (he claims he uses only three DB servers).
Super effecient .Net/SQL Server code
===

I recently heard of a site were the developer/owner bragged that he had minimal hardware to support his site (plentyoffish.com).  This site is listed as being in the top 50 in terms of traffic on Alexa. I am struggling to wrap my head around how something like that can be acomplished by doing what the developer/owner claims, writing super effient code using .Net and SQL Server.

How do you write code so effecient, with a language that has a fairly large amount overhead and with limited harware resources (he claims he uses only three DB servers).