Why wouldn't they be surprised? Python users were already using Python, so presumably it already solved their problems and they wouldn't benefit from another Python. Through Google's eyes, anyone who needed performance would have already long abandoned Python for C++.

What Googlers don't have a grasp of is how resource constrained most other businesses are. They cannot afford to hire C++ experts and were using Python because Python developers were the only developers they could get their hands on, even where Python wasn't providing sufficient performance.