Even for some individual contributor positions I budget to fly them in for a final interview. No access to AI, no ability to hide behind a bot. I’ve actually knocked some people out in the final round because they refused to meet in person.

A few hundred to a thousand spent on travel up front is worth the insurance of the six-digit salary we offer.

Impossible. The CEOs would have less time on their islands that way.

My last 4 jobs have been in person interview. Never had luck with online aplications, hell my current job I've been at 2 years now wasn't even hiring. I was moving to the area and thought it looked like a great place and reached out and we managed to make something happen. Industry dependent however it can be very hard to do that, nature of my business is mainly independently owned shops so it's easy to get ahold of the boss and make a conversation happen, that isn't the case everywhere.