We hire people to write distributed systems, and for those people, distributed systems is extremely relevant. We also hire people to do low-level Linux kernel stuff, and for those people, it's less relevant. I'm having trouble figuring out what it is you think you've found to dunk on here.
Probably for the same reason that practically every other team that builds distributed systems engages Kyle. But I can't speak for them, I guess.
Later
(This comment was rewritten after I replied to it; it previously expressed contempt for the idea that a company that supposedly works on distributed systems would retain any of the services of Kyle Kingsbury.)
