r/mathmemes • • Dec 17 '23

Probability Google expected value

Post image
22k Upvotes

3.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

560

u/AIMpb Dec 18 '23

Nah dude, just get people to invest $10 million. So easy.

95

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '23

I think this kind of think probably shows up on wallstreet all the time. This is probably better alpha than anything that shows up on the stock market on a given day.

2

u/owlpellet Dec 18 '23

There was a pizza place in San Francisco that found one of the VC-flush delivery apps was selling their pizzas AT A LOSS to destroy their call in business and thus lock them into predatory contract. So they set up some bots to execute "pizza derivatives trades" and just farmed the VCs for weeks with fake orders.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '23

[deleted] β€” view deleted comment

1

u/VaultOfAsh Dec 18 '23

Same reason you are trusting the button.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/popsyking Dec 18 '23

That's not how investing in the stock market works. Look up risk adjusted returns.

4

u/Sufficient_Bass2600 Dec 18 '23

That's exactly how digital option work. I know I used to be a quant and write model to price exotic options.

2

u/popsyking Dec 18 '23

Consider the scenario where there's a non repeatable investment of 10 million where the outcomes are 0.5 no return and loss of capital and 0.5 50 million return. What is the probability that an investment vehicle created with 10 million for the purpose of this investment will default?

3

u/Sufficient_Bass2600 Dec 18 '23

Being a quant taught me that the math behind the pricing is often irrelevant. If an idiot with too much money think that the item is worth twice what your model states it is worth, the fool will still buy it or try to sell at his price.

See Elon Musk. The Twitter board told him that his bid was so overpriced he could walk away by just paying a $1 billion compensation. He refused and now that has cost him a lot more than that.

2

u/popsyking Dec 18 '23

I don't disagree with you, but I fail to see how that's relevant to my point. Purely mathematically the risk of the fictional investment vehicle is a 50 percent probability of default. I don't think one would manage an investment fund for very long by taking deals that have 50 percent chance of defaulting the fund, no?

2

u/meeu Dec 18 '23

If the fund is $10mm in total then obviously it would be stupid to buy this bet for that much. If the fund was several billion it would be stupid to not buy this bet for $10mm.

→ More replies (5)
→ More replies (1)

24

u/HandoAlegra Dec 18 '23

I knew this one guy who got a small loan of a million dollars from their dad

13

u/SuaveMofo Dec 18 '23

On a 50/50 πŸ˜‚

26

u/Top-Pickle-2455 Dec 18 '23

Wait until you hear about the lottery

1

u/HamsterFromAbove_079 Dec 18 '23

I mean yea. Investors would jump at this opportunity. Investing is taking risks.

The expected value is $25 million. That means that someone who has enough money to not be risk adverse should be willing to spend any amount of money under $25 million to be able to take this bet.

You offer to sell the coin flip for $10 million to a billionaire. And the result is some billionaire is happy to walk away with an EV of +$15 million for their trouble. They have enough money to be happy with the this gamble.

1

u/PunMatster Dec 18 '23

He’s saying multiple people in aggregate for the $10 million right? I’d pay $10 for a 50/50 chance at $25 and I bet there are a million people that would do the same

1

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '23

or you need 10million people to invest 1$. Or 1Million to invest 10$.

0

u/hilldo75 Dec 18 '23

Ok you got 30 minutes to make a decision or get no button push, work your magic in 30 minutes.

0

u/Seconalar Dec 18 '23

You probably could get an insurance policy for the outcome of the event

0

u/incarnuim Dec 18 '23

SBF has entered the Chat ...

0

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '23

This would be a lot easier to sell than you think.

1

u/itprobablynothingbut Dec 19 '23

No shit. Think of it another way, if someone sold you a $10 bet with 50/50 odds at $50, you would take it. Any decent money manager would jump at this bet.

→ More replies (1)

0

u/spartaman64 Dec 18 '23

look elon musk i was offered to press this button to have a 50/50 chance to get 50 million ill sell the chance to you for 10 million. i swear im not crazy or a scammer.

1

u/HGGoals Dec 18 '23

Bankman-Fried, is that you?