The 3 P's

I've been in academia now for over a month. Its been a bit of a culture shock for a number of reasons, that include the difference between academic freedom and industrial security, access to journals and a number of other things - mostly all postive things, just takes a little time to adjust. But the most concerning thing, which surprised me with its intensity, was just how much of a rat race it is. It's very much everyone for themself. I was expecting more of a team ethos, but I think the only way you get that is by proving you can attract money and people gravitate towards you. This surprised me because you could never get that to work in industry. If you are not a team player you wont last long unless people absolutely need what you do.
I recently bumped into a Prof from another university and informed him of my change of circumstances. His advice was to be aware of the 3 P's. Pounds, papers and PhD's - in that order. Money is the most important priority. It seems that academia is running itself with the priorities of the commercial world. Is this what we want of our academic institutions. They are desperate to make money, desperate to generate intellectual property that they can sell.  If you really want to generate economic impact with your research then the only way to do this is to give it away to commercial enitites that can do something with it. After all research is (generally) paid for by the tax payer - all of which originates from commercial enterprise in the form of income tax, corporation tax. So in a sense you make commercial entities buy back the work they have already paid for. Universities dont sell much and the process is time consuming and costly, which is exactly what you dont need if you want to commercialise and have impact.
So if I am going to make my way in academia I need to attract some money, and seeing as how I have little academic track record that is not likekly to come from research councils. So I am in the position that academia is keen to pursue , which is getting money from industry and other non academic bodies. For this at least I ought to have an advantage. Time will tell.