How to Manipulate Expectations by Making People Feel They Got the Better Deal

What’s a good deal? The best deal is showing yourself.

More specifically, stepping into the spotlight and presenting yourself to the public is where the real value lies—the larger the audience, the better the deal.

Why does a bigger audience make it more worthwhile? Because it creates a premium, which we call the liquidity premium.

Take the same vase: auctioning it to a handful of people in a remote small town might result in it going unsold. But if you build global hype beforehand—getting every collector’s attention, spending three months systematically highlighting the vase’s provenance and historical anecdotes, and getting every major media outlet focused on Christie’s—and then hold the auction, it can easily fetch an astronomical price.

Consensus itself is value; the larger the group that reaches a consensus, the higher the premium.