That’s probably true, but there are a lot less highly paid ICs at the top than there are highly paid managers. So yes, you _can_ make the same, but your odds are a lot worse.
I don’t disagree with the imbalance or odds. Impact required to be that highly paid an IC usually boils down to “create the thing the company earns a large portion of its revenue selling” which is tough to do, especially more than once.
