People under you ~= cost of whatever it is you are providing. Equating that to some sort of "value" you create is an insane proposition; the only thing that communicates, at first glance, is that you/your division/what you work on is EXPENSIVE.
By and large the team doing the work are the technical experts
Nobody higher up really knows more
If you use more resources, then your project looks more impressive
This is a problem in many fields including academia. They need some way to judge work, but the only people qualified are your peers
In tech, however, any company is ~1 good (implemented) idea away from >100X ROI. From the top that looks like bringing in as many good people as possible in order to maximize your chances of one of them having that idea while on your clock.
Once a company is big enough it’s the multiple management layers that make that simple equation almost impossibly complicated.
Answer: the one that's most familiar to the person making the decision.