The early days of Go appeared to be the work of a group of people who had not ventured out of their bubble in a very long time and were unaware of several decad

The early days of Go appeared to be the work of a group of people who had not ventured out of their bubble in a very long time and were unaware of several decades of PL research, so it would be somewhat surprising if any of them knew what a typeclass was at the time. This is significantly less true now.