There's a lot of existence disproof to that statement. Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. have thousands of developers doing better than that, most of which wouldn't be described as specialists.
When it comes to disproof of course this is the case, as a single person my perception is limited. It also helps to be a bit more specific, because that level of salary is the minority for just the cash component. But once you include bonuses, perks, etc more people do get compensation like that.