You make it sound like the systemd author was something the CEO of all Linux Distros.

The maintainers of Arch Linux have given an explicit list[1] of the reasons why they decided to introduce systemd:

    0) it is hotplug capable
    1) we can know the state of the system
    2) it is modular
    3) it allows dbus/udev to go back to doing the task they are meant to do
    4) we can reduce the number of explicit ordering dependencies between daemons
    5) we get a lot of security/sandboxing features for free
    6) systemd service files can be written and distributed upstream
    7) systemd is a cross-distro project
    8) logind will finally deliver on what consolekit was supposed to do
    9) systemd is fast

[1]: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1149530#p1149530