For this to work, it has to extend all the way up to the CEO, otherwise somewhere along the chain, someone is going to think "Why should I work for the company just to make some other guy filthy rich?" That's the basis for building a company culture, though.
This is something Google's done particularly well, at least so far. I never see Larry or Sergey crowing about their billions or talking about how they built the company - they're always talking about how much more we (= everyone) could be building. By and large, that extends to all the senior executives.
When you don't have that, you end up with a culture more like Enron, which had employees that were probably as smart as Googlers yet was famous for its dog-eat-dog individuality. We know how that turned out.
Corporation is a fiction, only individual matters.
If you care only about your own goals, why not work for yourself and bypass the corporate system entirely? It's sorta implicit that someone who's working for a corporation is doing so because they share the goals of that organization yet can't achieve them on their own. (Yeah, I know that's not always the case because some people lack money and don't have the imagination to get it without a paycheck, but you were talking about "healthy, grown up" people here...)
I work for a corporation - for me it is easier, for now. I do not share any goals with the corporation at all. My goal is simple - to collect money (to drain the corporate cash), it is kind of opposite to the corporation's. Yet, my other goal is to maintain my integrity, so I am going to contribute as much as I think is justified.
You can work for yourself, even if you in somebody else's building.
He's saying that there are people who view the world differently from you, and that their type of ambition (shared with the company and/or team) is more useful to a corporation.
You are making a judgement that your world view is correct. I don't think he's judging the correctness of either view, only the usefulness of each kind.