The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers

The people who are paid the most are owners: those who have sizable % of equity in a successful startup.

Failing that, those who make the most are principal/lead engineers and managers with greatest impact. At those levels, the performance expectations can be soul-crushing and burn-out inducing. Still, they're not making the millions-to-billions that they're responsible for generating.

That's why anyone and everyone from the bottom to the top should want to be a fractional owner in a co-op business where there is averaged pay related to profit impact.

I'm amazed that workers still squabble over pay rather than disclose it to each other and ensure they get a fair chunk of what they produce. I don't think you can do that without employee ownership.