In a lot of the world it's nowhere near as well paid as most of the professions which have comparable requirements in terms of the amount academic study, vocational apprenticeship and natural aptitude needed.
> the folks making bank there do so because their equity has appreciated massively
That's not entirely true. The salary scale is way higher than other places. For example, just my salary at one of those companies is higher than my total comp at a company outside the circle, and I was well paid by any standard there.
> one reason for the pervasiveness of this myth
It's always possible to look up at people making even more, and feel like you're not paid well enough by comparison. But it's also worth considering the many times more people making less, compared to which we're very well paid indeed. For some of us, the empathy outweighs the envy.
Because it basically is.
> Try many finance jobs and big law, also medicine in certain specializations.
Selected finance jobs aren't an industry, neither is “medicine in certain specializations”, neither is big law (law as a whole is an industry).
> It’s also well known that to be an incredibly high paid SWE, you need to be at a large public tech company
To be incredibly highly paid within SWE, sure. SWE is still highly paid compared to the rest of the world outside of those firms, and an unusually accessible high-paying field, without any post-baccalaureate education requirement, or even a firm requirement for an in-field bachelor's degree.
Note that there are similar (and often much bigger) cliffs in other highly-paid industries (which your allusion to “big law” implicitly recognizes.)
High-paying medical specializations take far more education than SWE does. You start your career at 30, not at 22 like SWEs do.
But the stress levels and amount of hours you have to put in for both finance and law are exponentially higher than being a SWE. I honestly can't remember the last time I had to work 60-70 hour weeks, non-stop for months on end as a developer. The amount of stress in those industries also pales in comparison to the stress of being a SWE.
Teaching/Academia isn't a real job and can be replaced with the internet
As for teaching, if you want to be intubated by someone who once a post about it on Medium, well...best of luck.