The Bay Area is the exception, certainly. The question concerns whether other places would be more or less equal. There are three assumptions behind the claim

The Bay Area is the exception, certainly. The question concerns whether other places would be more or less equal. There are three assumptions behind the claim that wealth-seeking is better for income inequality: 1) rent-seeking is "easier money" than wealth creation (so if all physicists engaged in wealth creation instead of rent-seeking, as a group they'd end up having less money, hence less inequality for them v.s. non-physicists 2) wealth creation creates wealth, which in general is good for everyone, thereby reducing inequality by giving more people more stuff 3) wealth creating activities have a range of side benefits. E.g., unlike finance, it often requires recruiting, training, and leading teams to build things, which in turn creates jobs and better people, reducing inequality.