I don't know enough about different industries to know if this is true in general. But I do know in tech it is all about networking (aka soft nepotism): spending your career making friends ("swiping right on every work relationship"), and the fraction of those who go on to massively succeed you can then call in favors. At least that's how I made three huge jumps in my 35+ year career, and how the majority of my peers got the big step-functions in pay.

Perhaps in my original post I'm just confusing academia with industry, since I know so few academics.