There are more people in large organizations now, but the problems of greedy financiers and goofy bureaucratic behaviors go back thousands of years. I'm sure there is some subset of Dilbert comics that ancient Chinese officials would have found funny.
You are correct, and humans have been greedy, manipulative, and self-centered since the beginning of time. We often don't even see it in ourselves. I'm sure many of these people who contributed to his disillusionment probably thought they weren't too bad...especially when compared with some other person!
Pure toxic more common in webtech, gaming, and IT than other places. Although toxic webtech culture is kinda bleeding into software in general. Big corp and gov have different issues.
You actually kind of hint at it in your own writing. The behavior is everywhere.