This commentary essay is at least somewhat inconsistent with news reports like one I just saw on the New page here on Hacker News after reading the commentary kindly submitted here. The news report, "Goldman, JPMorgan Said to Fire 30 Analysts for Cheating on Tests"[1] suggests that some highly educated people who have already succeeded in being hired at highly selective financial firms think they cannot be altruistic while advancing their careers.

As other astute comments here have already observed, revealed preference (what people actually do) is a much better signal of human intentions than self-reported preference. People are happy to endorse altruistic values while not necessarily living by them.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-16/goldman-sa...