The difference in hospitality is that if you and your team do a really good job, the restaurant might double its profits for a night. In tech, if you and your team hit it just right, your firm could qualify for nine figures of progressive funding and IPO with a multibillion dollar market cap, catapulting the owner's wealth into the 0.01%. Guess which one is gonna pay six figures.

A restaurant is limited by the size of its kitchen, the number of seats, local demand, parking... A tech company is not nearly as limited by scale factors like that.

Tech companies are usually limited by their high risk of failure, but that risk is mainly held by the investors, not the owners and employees. If you can get funding, you can pay yourself gravy for as long as it lasts, as long as you don't violate a contract or screw yourself some other way.

Some are just grifters who are bluffing. Others really are potential billionaires with brilliant ideas. It's a gamble. People gamble when they're flush with cash, and the upper class in the US has been for awhile.