I would say that we mostly agree on both points.
I think that the word 'ambition' is colored in a negative light, which is probably the source of your intuition feeling that it was wrong. That's why I specifically used 'drive' or 'desire' first in the sentence.
Your father is successful, because he had the drive to get to where he is in life. I was not referring to the drive to be better relative to others, per se, but the drive to better oneself, one's life quality, etc. by internal yardsticks.
As a few other posters have talked about - I think someone who gets into a 'cog' position, and then ceases all personal growth and betterment is 'not as good of a person' as someone who gets into a 'cog' position and continues their attempts at growth and betterment. They may end their life/career in the cog - successful growth is not the requirement, merely the desire for it. And that growth may be entirely outside of 'work' - moving into charity, the arts, etc. is all just as good, from my point of view.
Does that clarify at all?
Your dad sounds like he probably effectively has his own business which I admire and aspire to.
Personally what I hate is this attitude that think if you didn't become google/facebook you failed. There was a reddit post a while back about some guy who opened a cleaning service that replaced his "cog" salary and allowed him to quit his day job. One of the first comments was "this won't scale!". He was able to quit his job! How much more scale does he need?
No, that's exactly what I mean. You are not better than the "cogs" simply because you've made different occupational choices. We all have our reasons for choosing what we do. And some people don't even have much choice.
Big companies are just a game of musical chairs for managers. They just need to show something on their 360 reports so they can get a promotion and they couldn't care less what happens to their previous team once they get that. They don't even care about the company itself, only climbing the ladder. If the company fails then they can just move somewhere else with their new higher rung experience and start the climb again. If you're a developer in such a place either you're trying to play the game yourself or you're literally whoring out your mind and fingers for cash. The job itself is utterly meaningless and can never be made meaningful because what you produce is irrelevant. The only part that matters is the politics.
It's true that many of us end up here because we have no other choices, but it's important to keep in mind what you're actually doing. Don't romanticize being an intellectual prostitute. Save up as much as you can so you can get out. If you're happy to stay in such a place, then yea I do have less respect for you.
I had a lot of difficulty replying to your comment. I feel intuitively that it's wrong, but it's hard to articulate why.
I guess there are a couple of problems:
a) ambition often drives both good and harmful behavior. Because of this, I feel that ambition is morally neutral.
b) I rankle at the notion that people can be "better" than one another, except in extreme circumstances. Is Mark Zuckerberg better for inventing Facebook, or is my dad better for making a career of healing people's marriages and personal problems through psychotherapy? My dad likes what he does, and is successful, but those who know him would not describe him as ambitious per se. Personally, I believe that Mark Zuckerberg and my father do what they do for their own reasons, and not out of altruism or a desire to make a better world. Or maybe they both do what they do out of a desire to make a better world. I don't think either of them is better than the other.