It’s because all of the skills that are required to become an executive are just as, if not more, important to have when you actually are one.

Most of your job will be getting people to do things (together, in the right order, without fighting).

Follow up: where can you do best based purely on technical/design/product skills? Freelance/consulting?

Nowhere. With Freelancing/consulting, you're just playing -their- office politics rather than your own. There is no place in society that allows you to avoid developing interpersonal skills.

This us true.

But different occupations need a different amount of interpersonal skills: a CEO or TV host need more, while a surgeon or a fighter jet pilot need somehow less.

It all depends on where you want to end up.

Not entirely true. Pathology or radiology has nearly zero interaction with patients, and they bill quite high.

You could probably coast along in surgery as well on almost zero interpersonal skills.

My eye doctor doesn't have great interpersonal skills. He made me feel like I was wasting his time when I asked a question. He always answered them, though, and he did cataract surgery really well. I wasn't paying him for his interpersonal skills.

Every profession also has its own social / cultural norms, regardless of the general level of interpersonal skill / communication skills / emotional intelligence (they all overlap) needed to succeed in that work environment.

If by nature and nature you are in line with said norms, that’s one thing. If you’re not (which isn’t a good or bad thing, just is) then you’ll probably need more of those aforementioned interpersonal skills than someone who “fits the profile” (especially when the profile is maybe not even a deliberate thing that people are aware of), so to speak.

Truth be told learning to develop more interpersonal skills is a _plus_. It’s so valuable in life in general, well beyond the workplace.

I guess running a bootstrapped (small) online business with low touch sales.

Probably joining (not starting!) an early stage startup where significant politics haven't developed yet and the focus is on getting to market (less than 25 people). I would say that freelance/consulting is a somewhat poor choice since self-promotion and networking are fairly mandatory to keep your client pipeline full and get your rates up.

Medicine. Unfortunately, it involves very little programming, but it does requires quite a bit of skill.

You can go very far on essentially zero interpersonal skills, especially if you specialize in pathology or radiology.