OK, so I have to put it all in historical context. This was in the early 90's... So my answers are colored by that:

• Because I was able to use it to break out of a dead-end desktop support career to become a full-time developer
• Because it was the closest thing to a "cross-platform" language that existed at the time. (This was prior to the Java "write once, run anywhere" mantra)
• Because I could grok it almost immediately after hacking bash scripts for a few months and beating my head against C for a couple of years & getting nowhere.