Half a mill here, half a mill there, soon you're talking serious money...?
It is possible that your perceptions of how easy it is to extract millions-scale dollars from the business world is skewed. Google suggests 1.7M is the median lifetime earnings in the US, 2.7 is the average. Getting that in a handful of deals could tempt all sorts of people.
I think your parent's point is that this guy wasn't earning an average salary, but a Netflix executive one. In that case, 500k definitely doesn't seem worth risking so much for.
There’s a lot of ways to tie yourself up in various obligations and burn money. It’s easy to waste seven figures with houses, cars, boats, philanthropy, bottle service, gambling, divorce, etc…
It is possible that your perceptions of how easy it is to extract millions-scale dollars from the business world is skewed. Google suggests 1.7M is the median lifetime earnings in the US, 2.7 is the average. Getting that in a handful of deals could tempt all sorts of people.