Premiere is in the unique position of being the oldest video editing suite on the market - the first version was released in 1991! Much as with Photoshop, this sort of automatically makes it the gold standard.
Even if they were the oldest NLE, that does not automatically make them “the gold standard.”
Avid/1 was released in 1989. And there were others before it, although I think often on more proprietary or niche hardware (Avid/1 was Mac already).
Things like that: https://www.lucasfilm.com/news/lucasfilm-originals-the-editd...
I think Media Composer always had a lead in feature film / TV. It's possible Premiere Pro had a lead in other markets.