It's a gradient. I saw this play out recently where a top engineer dictated he needed to work remote three weeks a month. Management was OK with it but were clearly disappointed because he is an incredible primary contributor, manager, and is part of the cultural bedrock of the department. Their argument to him was that his career development would be stunted, to which he replied "no, I don't think it will be." and left it at that. He's now working his remote schedule, so we'll see what happens. I guess the point I'm trying to make is maybe 5% of the company could pull this off. Nearly everyone else management would be far less inclined to accommodate.