I think it's reasonable to believe that the kind of work executives do is done better in person. I've never been an executive, but I'd believe it. I do know that, for many individual contributors, the kind of work they do is better done remotely. Certainly their lives are better. That's the real tension, in my opinion: whose experience is more important, and if it comes down a zero sum contest, who can make the other side blink first?

Ideally it should not come down to a zero sum contest, but that's often how these things happen.