I did see the early presentations. And since you did too, you will recall that one of the primary priorities was for it to "feel like a dynamically-typed language". You know, because it was trying to be a faster Python.

What you might be confusing that with is that their assumption was that Google services were written in C++ because those services needed C++ performance, not because the developers wanted to write code in C++, and that those C++ developers would jump at the chance to use a Python-like language that still satisfies them performance-wise. It turns out they were wrong — the developers actually did want to write C++ — but you can understand the thinking when Google was already using Python heavily in less performance-critical areas. Guido van Rossum himself was even on the payroll at the time.

For what it is worth, Google did create "Rust" after learning that a faster Python doesn't satisfy C++ developers. It's called Carbon. But it is telling that the earlier commenter has never heard of it, and it is unlikely it will ever leave the heap of esoteric languages because duplicating Rust was, and continues to be, pointless. We already had Rust.