All the jobs you mention here do not actually require the MD component. It might be icing on the cake (or in some cases totally useless) but you will be adding four years of opportunity cost when it is not needed.
Yep, agreed, two "highest paying" careers that I'm aware of are:
1) investment banking, MBA alone required, Goldman is among the top firms, their partner bonus is around $7,000,000 per year, it'd take maybe 8-10 years to make partner there I believe. Starting Salary out of B-school, mid 100's, maybe higher now. May have to move to NYC and have NO LIFE for some time. (what dissuaded me was the feedback from my classmates on how many "overnighters" they worked in an average month. And the general consensus that one cannot be a successful I banker and have a good marriage due to the time demands, social demands, networking requirements, etc.
2) entrepreneur/venture capital/hedge fund related. May have to move to Stamford, CT or Silicon Valley, takes time to get in the door. Again, MBA alone is what's required, in biotech, MD may help, I'd think PhD would be better, though. A position in which one receives a portion of the profit (equity) will far outweigh any "salaried" job, in corporate america or medicine.
MD positions pay substantially less than either route, depending on what's most important to the person, may want to look into the two routes above.