If you squint zig's error return fusion looks a bit like go's tuple error return but it actually is more "first-classing certain c conventions" than "adopting a go pattern". Same goes for slices.
1. It only allows function calls instead of any expression.
2. It allocates memory dynamically and attaches the function call expression to the function, rather than the current scope exit. This has surprising and harmful consequences if you use it inside a loop.
So, I wouldn't say that zig's defer is borrowed from Go.
Edit: ok rewatched it and I didn't see that come up, i was just misremembering
C never had the philosophy of keeping things simple through the years. If it did, we would not have time traveling UBs to begin with. The lauded simplicity and explicitness comes directly from Go, where the philosophy was crystalized and preserved very early on.
You might say it is semantics, to call improving upon C being a derivative of Go (with manual memory management). You would be partially correct, it is semantics, but one that holds up very well if you look at how languages developed over the decades.
I have two words for you: json marshalling