I grew up on Matlab. Entire PhD thesis work was all matlab. I started using python after leaving academia because it's much easier to put python into production, and I've never looked back. There are only 3 benefits to matlab. 1. Simulink, if you do that kind of stuff (I don't). 2. Some numerical algorithms in matlab are more efficient, but then some of the python ones are more efficient. 3. matlab array syntax is a bit more concise.

Python destroys matlab in all other regards. Once you've tried it for a while you'll understand the value of a general purpose programming language with advanced numerical capabilities