Michael Jordan is part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, actually, and I think there are a number of Google and Microsoft employees who are richer than Michael Jordan (who apparently has about US$400M and recently had to pay US$168M in a divorce settlement). It's true that it's because they're part-owners of Google and Microsoft, but that ownership was granted because of work they did, not (for the most part) because of dollars they contributed.

So I think the premise of the article is wrong; some programmers do earn as much as sports stars and star musicians. I don't have a good sense for how the numbers shake out in the aggregate.