Before AI, the most I had ever made in a year was $800K based on a long stock options play for a public company I knew was undervalued (and I was there for its rock bottom). And in academia, the most I ever made was $30K as a post-doc and $13K as a grad student before that. That anyone wonders why non-tenured sorts flee is mind-blowing.
In contrast, I've seen ruthless tenured types pull 7 figures with multiple labs at multiple institutions and lucrative consulting contracts with private industry and the military. All whilst cheating on their spouses or sleeping with their students, sometimes both.
My attempt to go into management was pretty disastrous due to my inexperience and toxic internal politics. And that made me lose interesting in pursuing it further because politics are just not my strong suite.
Mid-range engineers at FB I know personally are making ~$500K supporting AI efforts. AI is really lucrative for now and probably always will be. But I hope there's a purge of the posers in the field somewhere down the road.
ML isn't much higher paid than standard engineering, but new PhDs from top schools who would've been competitive faculty applicants tend to get jobs at top paying firms and enter toward the top of the non-executive ranks.