When people say "pleasure" in this context, they usually just mean to refer to whatever it is that the human brain likes internally. To then say that people don't just like pleasure - since they also like happiness/bliss - or whatever - seems to be rather missing the point.

As for the rather distinct claim that people want external success, not just internal hedonistic pleasure signals - that seems to depend on the person under consideration. Few want their pleasure to end with them being fired, and running out of drug money (though we do still have our addicts, even today) - but apart from that, some people really do seem to want the pleasure - or whatever you want to call it. For example, consider David Pearce.