You're going to be down-voted to oblivion as my comment was here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=938814. Google of 2009 has become the Microsoft of 1999. They can release anything and people will love them for it without skepticism. Let them. The sheep can follow their new overlord while the rest of us actually innovate. I highly suspect had Yahoo or Microsoft Research released Go, it would have received a much more lacklustre reception.

I thought my being downvoted here had more to do with linking to a negative (towards Go) comment, rather than the comment itself. My other comments critical of Google Go have been generally upvoted. But you're right. I think if Google weren't involved, nobody would even give Go a second look.