Outputs are nonlinear.
The most productive people might produce millions of time more value than others, but don't work a million times harder.
This often comes down to leverage: the ability to get more out for what you put in.
The four types of leverage (as per Naval Ravikant) are:
1) Labour - Getting others to do stuff for you
2) Capital - Investing existing wealth to multiply your decisions
3) Code - Outsourcing your work to computers
4) Media - Turning ideas into freely distributable assets
In theory, you can use leverage to solve people's problems (and thus get paid) at scale.
But in practice, there's nuance.