It sounds like your "co-creator" is asking for a gift. Cynical me thinks your colleague isn't asking for a gift but rather doing business as usual because "[th

It sounds like your "co-creator" is asking for a gift. Cynical me thinks your colleague isn't asking for a gift but rather doing business as usual because "[the course] is taken primarily by business students who have had professional experience". Standard operating practice in business, your partner has learned, is to ask for the moon with cheese on top, and if that's too much it gets knocked down to proper size during negotiations or in the courts, if necessity demands. Besides, you are inexperienced, and your partner is not. This is not a viable long-term strategy, and it's really dubious ethics, but since it's just an MBA class, and you won't have business dealings again, it's at least a rational strategy. What I'm saying is that the "rational economic actor" is a deeply amoral being, if not an immoral being, and it isn't worth dealing with such a thing.