The main reason was when they were standardising on the core-languages they could support, Python was enormously far ahead cf. the competition, so it was an obvious choice. And now, with all that code investment, you do NOT want to start again. And if you have the money, of course you'd be interested in hiring the best developers for your code-base.
Likewise, I believe Python 3000 is unlikely to used in Google for the forseeable future, due to that same code investment. I don't think Python 2.6 is fully supported, either...
I don't think "a bit more beginner friendly" is truly accurate. Most beginners will look for doc's and books, and for a good few years, recently, there was a dearth of good Python books while there seemed to be a new Ruby or Rails book every month, including several allowing you to d/l them for free.
I have to admit that I used to recommend Python to beginners for a long time, as it helped them avoid developing bad habits with the other equally popular "beginner" PHP and Visual Basic languages. These days, it's a toss-up.
If the person talks about writing web-apps, I'll tend to recommend Ruby and Rails as it has earlier ROI for a beginner, therefore a lot initially more satisfying.