There probably is a plateau, but I was surprised at how high it is. My first job was for $8/hour. Next was for $20/hour. The one after that was $32K/year. Then I went to college. Then it was $66K/year. Then I did a startup for nothing. Then it was $100K/year salary, but TC was about $160K/year. Got up to $300K over the course of that job. Then another startup for nothing. Then back for $630K/year, and it went up to about $900K/year with stock appreciation. Probably less now with the market crash, but still a lot more than I ever thought was possible as a plain old employee.
You do have to interview & negotiate well, and keep your skills sharp, and I'd bet that I'm about at the ceiling of what's possible as an IC. But now I've transitioned into management and all those startup exec positions are theoretically open. :-) There is always somebody making buttloads of money in the economy; if you want it, figure out who it is and how to make yourself useful to them.
You do have to interview & negotiate well, and keep your skills sharp, and I'd bet that I'm about at the ceiling of what's possible as an IC. But now I've transitioned into management and all those startup exec positions are theoretically open. :-) There is always somebody making buttloads of money in the economy; if you want it, figure out who it is and how to make yourself useful to them.