I don't think having a big internet company backing it is a sure success. Google also backed Dart and as far as I'm aware it's still a niche language.
Facebook created Hack, which I have yet to see in the wild (mind you I'm not really in the PHP bubble at the moment).
Apple used Objective-C and created Swift, but you don't see either of those outside of the Apple bubble and as far as I know Swift is just not used for back-end.
So I mean I hear what you're saying, but there's plenty of counterexamples.
Facebook created Hack, which I have yet to see in the wild (mind you I'm not really in the PHP bubble at the moment).
Apple used Objective-C and created Swift, but you don't see either of those outside of the Apple bubble and as far as I know Swift is just not used for back-end.
So I mean I hear what you're saying, but there's plenty of counterexamples.