It is fair to say that without those names attached I would have likely passed it by. Google is boring, but those three names, for me at least, I had to take a look.

> Google & adoption

I think it helped get around the initial cycle of drawing in the curious. An argument counter to claims regarding the importance of the people involved would point out Plan9 etc. that are hardly widely known, much less adopted.

In sum, I think the role of Google in one becoming a Go programmer depends entirely on when it happened. Today, of course Go has its own brand name. 8 years ago, it was Google that eased the debutante phase of the language.