Unsatisfied with the Quora answers, the reality is that they are usually extremely productive in their domain, thought leaders or big brands.

The meta is that thinking strategically from tactical on up about how solve business and customer problems at scale is uncommon, valuable. It's hard as it requires focus, experimentation and intellect. Further, common sense and critical thinking skills are basically impossible to improve from a rote memorization approach because the education system is so hopelessly disconnected from life and business. A wise parent today could act like an investor by taking a step back, do far less for their kids so they can become more independent and more survivable. Whenever I see kids having their food cut for them, ...

It seems that no engineer makes "$500k per year". Stock options don't pay every year. Contracting is too unreliable to guarantee that kind of yearly income as well. It's probably more reasonable to talk about "$5m over the course of ten years".