All-cash comp in the 300-500k range is surprisingly common (at least for 10+ year experience people in hot fields); add any luck on equity, and 2 incomes, and you can afford SF rents as they stand.

Being able to reliably get a $300k/yr cash salary (salary+bonus, but still cash) seems more related to absurd rents than 10% of people getting huge equity payouts (which tend to not even be that huge). I also think a lot of people who get $1-5mm equity windfalls often think "oh, buy a house somewhere else" vs. "a small condo in SF".

(equity does affect the buy market; if there were a rate hike and China implosion at the same time, but people still had equity money, they'd probably be the majority of buyers.)