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Reading it again, I see where the confusion lies - but I didn't even want to get into the issue of ownership. The $500k is only the "expected value". You have

Reading it again, I see where the confusion lies - but I didn't even want to get into the issue of ownership. The $500k is only the "expected value". You have a 50% chance of making $1M, 50% of walking away with $0. "then you're more than twice as likely to make money on the first deal than on the second." And that's why I'd choose the first deal, even though the economically 'rational' thing to do is to go for the second, which has higher expected value.

hugh 18y ago
Personally I'd take the second deal, but that's just because I don't consider $1 million to really be "fuck you" money at all -- it'd buy me a nice house and give me a good head start, but it wouldn't let me retire and spend the rest of my life doing whatever-the-hell-I-want the way $20 million would. His point still stands, of course, if you multiply the numbers by something. Make it a 50% chance of $10 million vs a 20% chance of $200 million, and I'd probably take the first deal.