Obviously you won't be set for life at any income level if you spend money as quickly as you earn it - hedonic treadmill and all - but there is an income level sufficient to meet all of ones needs, and the rest can be saved and invested.
Rule of thumb is: if you can barely afford the lifestyle you have with an income, you probably can't maintain the same lifestyle without an income.
Reality check: even in "high cost of living areas", typical salaries are around 50k. Most of my coworkers came from wealthy families and perceived buying condos in Chelsea as middle class activities. I don't think they saw themselves as rich. And to be fair, many probably didn't actually save that much money, because they had such expensive lifestyles.
Out of curiosity, what are the tax rates and housing prices where you are?
In my area, the maths would work something like this. Let's say $400k income (extremely high for my city). After tax, more like $200k. Rent might be $30k, plus other costs, let's be generous and say $40k total. That comes out around $160k savings per year. Lets say you work there for 5 years (which IMO is a long time at the start of your career), that's $800k. Median house is $1.5M. You could probably buy a substandard apartment and be back to 0 savings. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it better than what everyone else is getting? Absolutely. But I don't think it's exactly "set for life" given you've achieved pretty bare minimum...
What I've also found is there's a correlation between people in tech who don't seem to care about money, and having already started from wealth. Oh, how are you saving so much money? Right, you live in your parents' second house... How did you afford that apartment? Oh, your parents paid for half of it... (For added effect, add in a rich partner too.) Etc etc. Strip away generational/systematic wealth and even at the top of the layperson ladder, you're barely getting anywhere.
I think this might be the root of the difference in perspective. Very few people can be set for life maintaining a lifestyle only just afforded by their income. You may have to move to a cheaper neighborhood or less costly metroplex, and perhaps not buy a new car as frequently. But you won't have to work a day again
Claiming these are anywhere comparable is an incredibly lack of perspective.
The parent was talking about their country, not the USA.
The wealth inequality in the US is the underlying fracture in the social compact that is driving the populist politics that are at play.