From the Tech Talk PDF, it is mentioned that Robert Griesemer, Ken Thompson, and Rob Pike started the project in late 2007. Ian Lance Taylor and Russ Cox joined in 2008.

And the goal, as they mention, seems to have the efficiency of a statically-typed compiled language with the ease of programming of a dynamic language but with -

Safety: type-safe and memory-safe.

Good support for concurrency and communication.

Efficient, latency-free garbage collection.

High-speed compilation.

They are aiming at a lightweight type system with no implicit conversions and no more 0x80ULL.

A good starting point is their FAQ page and also the tech talk at youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKnDgT73v8s