Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Ken Basin, Harvard Law ‘08, Sure Does.
Meet Ken Basin. This legal prodigy, just 24 years old, is an associate at Greenberg Glusker, one of the top entertainment law firms in the country. Basin graduated last year from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude and with a Sears Prize, at the tender age of 23.
Basin isn’t just a handsome legal genius; he’s also a trivia ace. Back in 2003, he made it to the semifinals of College Jeopardy (which, incidentally, his girlfriend won back in 2000).
On Sunday, Basin was back in the hot seat. He made it all the way to the million-dollar question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
So how did things turn out for Ken Basin? Did he join the ranks of lawyers who have won seven-figure sums on television — e.g., Victor and Tammy Jih, of Harvard Law School and the Amazing Race, and Yul Kwon, of Yale Law School and Survivor?
Find out how he fared, after the jump.
Here’s a video clip of Ken Basin grappling with the final question. Although Basin himself is easy on the eyes — he reminds us of Elijah Wood, who’s positively dreamy — the video is almost painful to watch, due to its sheer suspense:
The best part of the video takes place around the 3:55 mark, when Basin says:
In law school we would say that people who went to law school went there because they were risk-averse, and the people who were risk-loving went to business school.I went to law school. Maybe I should have gone to business school.
This macho-sounding declaration is greeted by applause from the audience. Regis Philbin exclaims: “It’s getting more exciting by the second!”
Having resolved to take the risky path, Basin goes on to answer this question:
For ordering his favorite beverages on demand, LBJ had four buttons installed in the Oval Office labeled “coffee,” “tea,” “Coke,” and what?A) Fresca
B) V8
C) Yoo-hoo
D) A&W
Basin selects Yoo-hoo. We would have guessed V8. The correct answer: Fresca.
One tipster’s take:
This attorney was on Who Wants to be a Millionaire [on Sunday] night. He won $500,000. Very impressive.But then, after discussing how he went to law school because he was risk averse, he risked it all on a COMPLETE guess on the million dollar question, and ended up walking away with only $25,000.
But did Ken Basin “guess”? He strenuously objects, via a status update on Facebook:
Ken Basin’s only regret is not making clearer the thought process behind his answer to the million dollar question. It was not a blind guess, people. If anyone cares about my reasoning, I am happy to share. But while I’m happy to be accused of poor judgment (I’ve certainly accused myself plenty), I don’t like this talk of guessing.
This piqued our curiosity, so we reached out to Basin via Facebook message. We introduced ourselves and Above the Law, then asked about that final question. He kindly responded:
I’m very familiar with ATL and your work on it. Actually, you gave a talk to my Legal Profession class during my 3L year at HLS (David Wilkins was the professor)….On my reasoning: I viewed my answer as a calculated risk. I immediately eliminated V8 (cannot imagine LBJ touching the stuff) and A&W (did not seem likely that A&W and Coke would both be on tap, and I had zero feeling about the choice, unlike the other two options). I remembered a photo — it may not be real, and I haven’t been able to find it online since, but it was in my brain somewhere — of LBJ meeting the Beatles, drinking a Yoo Hoo. And the audience, while notoriously unreliable on Millionaire’s third tier questions, was not a usual audience: my taping was populated with former and future Millionaire contestants, many of whom were very successful on their own runs. That the audience confirmed what I thought independently gave me a lot of confidence. In the end, I estimated that I had about a 70-75% chance at it. Most people have to risk bankruptcy to take a shot at a million dollar payday…I just had to make a calculated wager with found money.
Basin’s reasoning, in essence: a 70 percent chance of winning $1 million is more valuable than a 100 percent chance of winning $500,000 (which is what he effectively had before answering that final question).
Still, losing out on almost $500,000 has to hurt. How does Basin feel? He told ATL:
The show taped about 3 weeks before it aired, so I have had ample opportunity to digest what happened. Do I regret going for the last question? I sure as hell regret getting it wrong. And let’s be real, whatever my lifetime earning potential, $500,000 is real, meaningful money (though it didn’t feel like real money until about 6 hours until after I’d actually lost it).But I don’t regret the way I played the game. I took a calculated risk and it didn’t pan out, but it was that same willingness to take calculated risks that got me to the million dollar question in the first place. If I was put in the same position again, I can’t say I would play it differently.
Good for you, Ken. More lawyers should be willing to take risks; we applaud you for having guts. And congratulations on winning $25,000 — it may not be $500,000 or $1 million, but it’s a nice chunk of change. So kudos on your fine performance!
P.S. For a more detailed postmorten, check out Ken Basin’s blog.
UPDATE: Think we’ve been too nice to Basin? For a harsher take, which also includes a behind-the-scenes look at how Millioniare contestants are selected, see this Gawker post (by our former Wonkette co-editor, Alex Pareene). Or check out Michael Starr’s article in the New York Post, “Kid Blows $475G on ‘Yoo-Hoo.’”
Kenneth D. Basin [Greenberg Glusker]
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire—Ken Basin’s $1,000,000 Question [YouTube]
Official postmortem [Begging the Question]
The chance to be a ‘Millionaire’ [The Marquee Blog / CNN]
(159) Comments
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First to make millions.
Reasoning fail. He took a risk at making an additional $500000, not a millie. .7*500000 = 350000. 350000<500000. He should probably also have discounted the fact that there was a 30 PERCENT SHOT OF LOSING HALF A MILLION DOLLARS YOU FUCKING IDIOT!
2 - No, 0.7 x $1,000,000 = $700,000
1.0 x $500,000 = $500,000
$700,000 > $500,000
I hate to admit that I actually saw this show. I liked Ken until he blew it at the end -- whether his decision to go for the million was based in hubris, greed, whatever -- I yelled at the TV when he made his comment about how he should have gone to business school. The guy clearly had no idea which answer was correct, despite what he says in his damage control statement. He wanted to be the Big Man, but he became the Schmuck Who Threw Away $475,000 on a Whim.
He was almost in tears, but I just couldn't feel sorry for him. Half a million for a few minutes "work" is nothing to throw away. For a lawyer, I think he displayed incredibly poor judgment.
Lat, do you ever wonder if the subject of your articles is offended by your shallow observations regarding attractiveness? Ewwwwww.
I suppose that I should know the answer to this question, but is Harvard Law accredited by the American Bar Association? Does anyone know whether the school is a member of the Association of American Law Schools?
6, Harvard is an online school not eligible for ABA accreditation. However, it is accredited by the State Bar of Massachusetts, so rising 2L's take the 'baby bar' and are then eligible to keep studying if they pass; upon graduation, they can sit for the state bar exam and may be able to eventually get into other jurisdictions by reciprocity.
"And let's be real, whatever my lifetime earning potential, $500,000 is real, meaningful money (though it didn't feel like real money until about 6 hours until after I'd actually lost it)."
The guy sounds like a complete douche. No sympathy.
Um, 2, Lat's right.
It's simple expected value.
Assuming his percentages of getting it right, if he made the guess, his expected value would be (70%)($1,000,000) + (30%)($25,000) = $707,500
If he abstained from answering, his expected value would be (100%)($500,000) = $500,000
$707,500 > $500,000. Thus, go for the guess.
If you want to fault him for anything, you can fault him for his determination that he had a 70% chance of getting the question right if he guessed in the first place, but you're likely falling victim to the hindsight bias. He got the thing wrong. You know what the outcome ended up being. Thus, ex post, he looks like he goofed, even though ex ante it might have been a solid call.
You're probably the same kind of guy who screams at the TV screen when the person DOES choose to walk away, and when the host asks him what he would have picked, it turns out right.
Hindsight is 20/20, and you would do well to crack a book on basic probability.
Hugs and Kisses,
1
5 - I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be offended if someone called me attractive.
6 & 7, you're an idiot, Harvard is the #2 ranked school by U.S. News and is easily fully accredited by the ABA and the AALS.
-P.S. Anyone who calls me an idiot is an idiot just like 6/7 is an idiot. It's all quite circular.
10 - why don't you let us know if that ever happens.
11 must be a Harvard grad because he clearly does not get it.
He's a fool for thinking he had anywhere near a 70% shot at it. It probably wasn't even 50% based on his casual dismissal of the V8 and A&W choices. All the statistical knowledge in the word can't overcome a bit of hubris.
Take the $500k every time!
This goes to show you that Harvard grads are quite fallable, especially when the stakes are high. Imagine what he'd do in complex litigation. Crumble like a house of cards.
Um, his comment "...maybe I should have gone to business school" sounded cocky as hell. He got pwned. I have no sympathy for this idiot. The simple math is that he lost $475,000 on a guess. He shouldn't have gone for it at the risk of losing that amount of money unless he was 100% sure.
13= EPIC FAIL
Ditto 3...let's look at this the correct way, shall we?
First, 2's statement that the 70% chance of winning an additional $500,000, for an expected additional win of $350,000, or a total of $850,000, was not enough because $350,000 is less than $500,000 is laughable. Obviously, if he had chosen to walk away with the $500,000 he already had, he would have had a 0% chance of winning the additional $500,000. So now we're talking 0.00 * $500,000 = $0. $0 is not only also less than $500,000, but less than $350,000.
As Lat mentions, by guessing with his stated 70% level of certainty, he had a 70% chance of winning $1 million, for "expected" winnings of $700,000 (yes, I realize that under no circumstance would he have gotten exactly $700,000, but "expected" winnings is the mathematical term, basically meaning a weighted average). On top of that, he had a 30% chance of getting it wrong and walking away with $25,000 (I thought it was $32,000, but I guess I haven't seen the show in a while). So his expected winnings if he got it wrong were .30 * $25,000 = $7,500. The total expected winnings are thus $707,500, which is greater than $500,000.
You might say that the difference between what you can do with $500,000 is huge compared to what you can do with $25,000, and that the difference between $500,000 and $1 million is not as comparable because they're already both huge sums of money, and that therefore he should have walked. But if you're going to make a mathematical argument, as 2 has tried and failed to do, the answer is that he should have done just what he did.
Uh..#9, your math is wrong.
(.70)(500000) - (.3)(475000)
The $500K is already his money. He has already won it and it's no different if he were to write a check from his bank account to take that risk.
Even though he has positive expected value in taking the risk, he has to consider his bankroll. Since he's a income potential person, this gets a bit trickier.
Forget all the Math.
Here is all you need to know.
You don't look a gift horse in the mouth or
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Take te $500,000 and walk.
I knew it was Fresca, for whatever reason. He should have thought about the time period; Fresca was all the rage. BUT a basic SAT equation should have popped into his head anyway:
coffee : tea :: coke : ?
Both coffee and tea are non-carbonated, AND one is caffeinated while the other is generally what the caffeine-adverse choose over coffee.
Both coke and fresca are carbonated, AND one is caffeinated while the other is caffeine-free.
I see the logic there, and I'm sure LBJ did too. BTW, I was on Wheel of Fortune. Got to the bonus round, but couldn't solve the final puzzle, so I feel his pain. : (
21 loves standardized tests. Your reasoning does trump anyone else commenting as well as the contestant himself.
19, it makes no sense to compute the expected winnings resulting from his taking the guess and then subtract from that the expected losses resulting from the possibility that that guess is wrong. I see the emotional argument, but the purely mathematical argument favors him taking the guess.
18
Even if his chances were 50%, he made the right call from an expected value standpoint.
.5 * 1000000 + .5 * 25000 > 5000000
Hard to know for sure that your chances are really 50% in that position, though.
Tea generally has caffeine in it 21 (herbal teas excepted).
Logic fail.
Meant to write 500000, not 5000000.
24
I was 24 when I graduated from HLS. It was not a big deal, and I certainly didn't consider myself of "tender age."
Saw it on TV...the guy is a huge tool. He made an ass of himself and is the reason people hate lawyers.
Cocky prick. Glad he lost it all.
11, you're thinking of Harvard Law School. Harvard Law is Elie's alma matter, and a cheap online knockoff. Harvard Law School has been unsuccessful in getting Harvard Law to cease and desist, because their name is old and they let the trademark lapse. You can tell the difference because.... well, look at Elie's writing.
This whole time I thought I went to Harvard with a doucher...
O - M - G
Lawyers are really bad at math.
The $500,000 he has already won isn't some "house money". It's his money. Same as if it were in his bank account. That's a common misconception that gamblers make. When they win a bet and they double up and they say they're gambling with "House Money", that's the stupidest thing possible. That money won is YOURS! Same as if it were in your bank account.
That $500,000 is already his. It's already in the BANK.
With a 70% chance (that's his estimate probably too high IMO), he's risking $475,000 to win another $500,000.
EV = $500000*.70 - $475000*.3
EV = $207,500
Yes. He has a positive expected value situation. That's a good start. But he runs the problem of bankroll problems. There is such a thing as an overbet.
There's a similar problem to this I wrote about on Face the Ace:
http://www.investorgamblereconomist.com/2009/08/howard-lederer-gives-questionable-bankroll-advice-on-face-the-ace.html
Lawyers are bad gamblers, businessmen, and mathematicians.
#19
Sorry to spoil his fun, but there were 4 answers. That means he had a 25% chance of getting the answer correctly. Including bullshit reasoning does not actually change the real probability that any of those letters would be correct. If you can positively rule out answers that is different than saying you have hunches and may have seen a photo once that may or may not be real.
Dear 25,
As i wrote in 21, tea is "generally what the caffeine-adverse choose over coffee." I never said all tea is without caffeine. BUT I suspect that LBJ's tea was not some dark black tea. In fact, I BET it was a light-colored, low-caf tea which would work in favor of my equation even more if looking at the color of the beverages:
dark : light :: dark : light
Seriously, if I can prove LBJ drank light, caffeine-free tea, based on my logic alone, will Regis give me a million? Or will Harvard withdraw its rejection letter and send me an honorary diploma?
You are all morons. This is very simple. He had to bet $500K to win another $500K.
If you sit down at a poker table and there is $1,000 in the pot and you have a chip stack of $500, and someone bets $500 (i.e., puts you "all in"), you make your call/fold decision based on the $1,500 that is in the pot that you could win versus what you have to bet in order to play. If you have better than a 30% chance of winning that pot, you call the bet because your expected payoff is higher than the $500 you're betting.
Here, this guy had to go all with is $500K in to win another $500K. 70% chance = $350K.
Lat, the tone of this article and your support for the subject was clearly influenced by the attractiveness of the subject. okthxbi.
you are forgetting about the marginal utility of money. The dollars between 25K and 500K normally have a greater marginal utility than the dollars between 500K and 1 million. Each individual's utility curve is going to be different (and hence our own personal risk aversion when facing a similar choice).
If you were making this choice 100 times, a pure expected value calculation would make sense. If you only have 1 shot at 25K, 500K or 1,000K, the math is more complicated than any of the posters realize.
Partner Emeritus, with his peer firm wages, has so much money that the game is basically just a casino bet for him. Another hand of blackjack. He probably takes the gamble based on the expected value calcuation.
Roxana, with her career in the shitter, has a very high marginal utility for that first 500K. She can feed the cats and pay the rent for quite awhile. She takes the money and runs.
Both could be entirely rational and correct economic decisions based on the different values they each would place on the first and second halves of the big prize.
Law students, please pay closer attention in your law and econ classes this fall. The rest of you, get back to work.
Yes 37, b/c pure law students generally take econ courses. WTF?
37, what's the marginal utility of money for the graduate of an online non-accredited law school? Is this impacted by the fact that the school may get sued for stealing the name of a respected university?
Wait, "Millionaire" is back? Why? Didn't everyone get sick of that show ten years ago?
And there's a timer now? WTF?
I'm having four buttons installed in my new office!
All four dispense sour cream on demand.
#35 only half right. Meaning all wrong in math.
He has to risk $475000 to win $500000, because $25000 is guaranteed.
Typical lawyer, over confident and full of himself. He thought he was god.
This young cur's reckless nature is what defines the current generation of attorneys. Moreover, this example resonates how mathematically challenged lawyers are. The answer to this question was either known or not. There was no deductive reasoning or logic that could have arrived to the correct answer. I was surprised how foolish he was to rely on public opinion, which has historically made horrendous decisions (i.e., 2008 Presidential Elections). In the end, his own bravado and overconfidence was his undoing. Note to the non-peer firm of Greenberg Glusker: keep this mentally spasmodic lad away from clients as he is clearly not ready for prime time.
Sent from Partner Emeritus' Touch Pro 2™ Smartphone.
Sweet criminy, what an idiot,
1) 32 nails it, the $500,000 isn't "found" money, it is his.
2) 37 is also right, when you take into account the extra taxes and utility of $500,000 on top of the first $500,000, it really isn't worth the expected value vis a vis risk.
3) Can't belive I'm the first to say this, but what is up with the faux-hawk in the picture? Glad the entertainment law community took him in as no real law firm would put up with that.
Lady Soto,
Can I eat that sour cream off of your Taco Bell Mexican pizza BOX? I don't want any of that fire sauce in my eyes though.
Lat
Did you write this, or did Elie?
This macho-sounding declaration is greeted by applause from the applause.
PE,
How did you get your Jitterbug to signiture itself as a Sprint Touch Pro 2? BTW, you're a complete fucking loser.
29 -
I agree. He was a total douche at times. Glad he lost it.
24 - the second $500k is worth less than the first $500k (which is why risk-averseness is rational behaviour)
37=lat
You are all failing to realize how big of a loser this contestant really is. When I was 21-22 I was doing outrageous amounts of coke banging a new chick almost every night having the time of my life. This fucker was at Harvard Law School. Now he's 24 and is involved in a serious profession, what a fucking dipshit. Being a lawyer isn't that cool and the fact someone would try and aspire to be one by the age of 24 is pathetic.
I know Ken from HLS. He told me that he was going for the million so he could quit the law and pursue his true passion, fishing for lobsters.
38 -- graduate of online non-accredited law school. Poor bastard.
32 and 37 are the most intelligent comments on this thread.
30 is the most amusing comment on the thread
what a douchebag!!! hahahahaha!!!! lawyers are asses lmao!!!!
Big deal. He doesn't come close to the brains at UChicago. Dan Pawson: 5th all-time winningest on Jeopardy (9 times straight and then tournament of champions).
Not impressed. UChicago's Dan Pawson is the 5th all-time winningest on Jeopardy (9 times straight and then tournament of champions). http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/090416/jeopardy.shtml
I wonder if 56 and 57 is the same person? idkmybffJill.
37 is right. Additional flaw is the reasoning that his eliminating two choices based on guesswork reduced the odds of guessing incorrectly to 30%. It did not. He would need to have been 100% certain it was not those choices, which absent knowing the correct answer was almost certainly NOT the case.
The second greater flaw is to treat "found money" differently from any other money. This is a mistake that is shocking from someone so intelligent. The only thing that would make it less shocking is if the marginal utility of the additional money was equivalent to the marginal cost of the loss of the $500K sure bet. This would usually only be the case for someone that is indifferent to money. My guess is that he is independently wealthy already and that he was upset at his wrong guess only because he's a naturally very competitive person (evidenced by his early graduation from law school etc.)
I would put the odds on this being an accurate assessment at about 70%...
Why does this nitwit think that he had a 70% chance of winning? That's his real problem. He's like a Lehman banker arbitrarily assigning default risk to a mortgage portfolio. It doesn't matter how fancy his mathematical model is, he's guessing the underlying values.
What a tool, this is what HLS is graduating now?
BTW, Doesn't anyone else remember that the LBJ liked Fresca?
It's just awful reading about Lat's lust.
Nice post Lat.
60 - actually I did remember that. He was a Fresca fanatic.
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world/fresca-was-lbjs-favorite-relish-in-oval-office_100237189.html
What a schmohawk!
I can't believe they're still making that show.
21/34- unintentional comedy gold.
It was caffeine/non-caffeinated beverages first, now it's light/dark? Maybe between posts you realized that A&W, like Fresca, is not caffeinated?
It's nice that you thing you can read LBJ's mind but it's still a 25% chance guess in the end, your love for standardized testing notwithstanding.
66, in all honesty I just remembered that Fresca was popular back then; A&W, not so much.
But, yes, the color issue is also legit.
BTW, anyone wanting MORE comedy gold should turn on C-SPAN right now and watch as Congressman Jim "blame the Jews for the war in Iraq" Moran and Howard "I don't pay my taxes" Dean get reamed by hundreds of angry taxpayers.
What a joke!
Look all you probabilities or statistics genius,
You all overlooked one fact if you actually watched the show Sunday night: This kid painted himself as a grateful child of a pair of hardworking Russian immigrant parents. And he wanted to return the love of his parents by paying for a return trip for them to see Rome again.
Yet, he gambled away the chance to give them this wonderful trip back to Rome. So screw all you mathematical calculations because your models did not take into considerations the human factor.
This "epic fail" is even more obvious when one realizes that he is the first person on US version of show ever to get the 1 mm question wrong. Many have "passed", but every other person was smart enough either to know it or to avoid guessing.
18 and 23 here--
What 37 says is correct and is basically what I referred to as the "emotional argument", although he calls it by a more proper name. Depending on the values you put on each half of the prize, you may well take the money and run, as I suggested in comment 18.
But if you are doing this purely mathematically, you would indeed guess if you believe you know the answer to 70% certainty. That's the point, and 32 doesn't get it. If you look at what 32 calls the "expected value," it's $207,500. That number is exactly $500,000 less than what 9 and I said the expected value was ($707,500). This is not a coincidence. That number, $207,500, is exactly $500,000 less than our answers because it is the expected value of *how much more* you will win on top of the $500,000 you've *already* won. No one, at least not 9 and me, are saying the $500,000 is "house money." The question we answered is: what is the "expected value" (basically a weighted average) of the *total* amount he would walk away with if he guessed, knowing the answer to 70% certainty? And, is that number greater than $500,000, which is the total amount he would walk away with if he didn't guess?
32 first multiplies $500,000 by 0.7, which gives the first number in the equation of the expected value of *how much more* he will win. He could win another $500,000, and he has a 70% chance of doing so, so the number is 0.7* $500,000 = $350,000.
Or, he could lose $475,000 (because, as 9 and I recognize, the money is indeed "in the bank" if he wants it, and therefore he could lose it). So 32 then recognizes he could lose $475,000, that he has a 30% chance of losing that much, and thus multiplies $475,000 by 0.3. 32 then subtracts that from the $350,000 number above, and bingo, we have the expected value of *how much more* he would win from guessing. We basically subtracted the expected value of his losses, relative to $500,000, from the expected value of his winnings relative to $500,000.
Because $207,500 is the expected value of *how much more* he would win from guessing, you still must add the initial $500,000 even though, as happened here, he lost that. That loss is accounted for by including the probability of losing $475,000 in 32's equation. $500,000 + $207,500 = $707,500 > $500,000.
If you aren't convinced, consider this: what if, hypothetically, he had a 99% chance of getting it right? By 32's formula, you would do (0.99)($500,000) - (0.01)($475,000) and get $490,250. Because this is less than $500,000, presumably 32 would say he shouldn't guess. Does that sound ridiculous yet? It should. And nothing magical happens between 99% and 70%. If 32's logic is wrong for 99%, it's wrong for 70%. And, I assure you that no matter how high you make that percentage (99.99999 with 9's to infinity), under 32's equation you will always get a number less than $500,000, and thus under 32's logic you should never guess.
It is of course very likely that the marginal utility of the second $500k is less and that this should weigh in his decision, as I suggested in comment 18 but worded differently. Mathematically, though, the expected value of the *total* winnings is higher if you guess.
68 - He can probably still take them on that trip to Rome, with his $25,000.
REGARDLESS, the fact is this: government cannot run a program as simple as Social Security and therefore should not be in the business of controlling our health.
I just finished telling the story of this hapless chap to Roxy and Collette over at Rick's Cabaret. They could not believe this buffoon threw away half a million on an uneducated guess. For that kind of money, the kid could have reigned supreme at Rick's for a couple of weeks.
Again, this kid is an example of how thin the legal gene pool is these days. GG, don't be surprised if your clients pass on the blunderkid as a result of his reckless display and ability to wilt under pressure.
Sent from Partner Emeritus' Touch Pro 2™ Smartphone.
What a goof. My middle of the class, older, part-time TTTT graduating dumb-ass knew the answer to that quesion! And I certainly wouldn't have taken a 50/50 guess on a question I wasn't fairly sure about with 475K on the line - I am not as risk tolerant as PE would be. . . Plus I am from TTTexas, so LBJ questions are not 50/50 questions to us.
And I remember how awful Fresca tastes!
73, LOL at the idea of telling strippers about what you read on ATL today.
Handsome is a little generous...
All you of math wizards forgot the biggest cost of all: looking like a giant douche on national television.
77, Obama knows EXACTLY how that feels.
Guys at my high school used to go on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?," fail to take into account the marginal utility of money, and lose $475,000 all the time, it was no big deal.
Oh, snap. It's true. Obama is a douche according to this sticker:
http://www.zazzle.com/obama_douche_sticker_bumper_sticker-128109512635697644
Lat,
Making it to the semi-finals of COLLEGE Jeopardy does not make someone a trivia genius. Winning college Jeopardy is like winning the NIT. Just because you are an enormous creep and like to write about your attraction to heterosexual males does not mean you should write in superlatives about mediocre accomplishments.
74 - Screw you! Fresca is refreshing and delicious.
Wow - was that Greenberg Glusker and "top law firm" in the same sentence??
I was looking at the Greenberg Glusker site and saw what I think is the worst shit eating grin I have ever seen on a human being. Take a gander...
http://www.ggfirm.com/people/attorneys/Holt
83 - Yes. It's certainly true, for entertainment.
Bert Fields = God.
27 - He's 24 now, and he graduated in 2008, so he was younger than you when he graduated HLS.
70, YOU'RE the one that doesn't get it. Talk too much too.
a kid from Cardozo won more money than a kid from HLS.
Deal with it.
In Mr. Arthur Greenberg's own words: “A lawyer should have both judgment and a reputation for judgment." I wonder what Mr. Greenberg thinks of Mr. Basin's judgment.
http://www.ggfirm.com/people/attorneys/Greenberg
Oh, oh ... here's go Lat again waxing homoerotic about a 23 year old boy.
Straight Baller...
http://www.ggfirm.com/people/attorneys/Fields
The writers on this site have an awfully strange idea of attractiveness, from the wedding announcements to this douchey weirdo, they seem to think every weird looking nerd is "attractive." Have they ever left the office and walked around Manhattan and seen actual attractive people??
92 - Kash just needs to look in the mirror.
is this how homosexuals find partners
I am not sure where ATL's "snarky" reputation comes from.
Compare Lat's write-up, which is practically sycophantic towards Basin, to the two articles he mentions in the "Update" at the end:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08252009/tv/schmuck__186310.htm
http://gawker.com/5345475/we-wanted-to-be-a-millionaire
94 - No. That's what Manhunt is for.
Of all the choices, I was shocked that the answer was Fresca. Fresca was introduced in 1963, and LBJ never struck me as someone who went for something new. I would have thought that the correct answer is A&W, but if I was not 100% then I would just take the money and run. This kid not only got the wrong answer, but also acted like a complete douche on national television. Well, I guess he can always fall back on his HLS degree (kind of like Elie). We love you big guy.
Ken showed terrible judgment. If he gambled away half a mil on an uneducated guess, as a client, what makes you think he won't blow your matter/case on an uneducated guess? Poor judgment indeed.
Jesus, how big of a douchebag to you have to be to wear cufflinks without a tie?
This guy is the poster child as to why Millennial generation lawyers deserve to be no-offerred/deferred.
To quote Robert DeNiro's character in 'Copland:'
Ken, "YOU BLEW IT!"
Ken is NOT Ken Jennings
If he didn't know the answer, he should have just taken the money.
Not impressed. Anyone who has ever watched the history channel would know that LBJ installed Fresca in the White House vending machines. This was a no brainer, especially for a mega-nerd like this guy.
Captain Obvious,
You are what I have looking for on this site. So many doucher lawyers debate about the most mindless obvious shit ever. Thank you.
-Still at the office working for less than half the money per annum that this fucktard threw away with one lifeline left.
TYPO: It's Yul "Kwon" not "Kown".
97 - without knowing the answer, fresca was not a good guess. No self-respecting Texan would be caught drinking grapefruit sodie-pop. That would be like eating quiche.
women find elijah wood attractive? oh wait this is a lat thread.
Schadenfreude galore
Nerd boy said "now give me my million dollars"
EPIC FAIL
The math is easy; if you are perfectly risk neutral you answer if your chance of being right is slightly less than 50%. But on this question there is no rational way to get to 50% as he admitted on the show. You can only eliminate choices based on hunches and stereotypes about powerful Texans. Suppose you walk into a room and are told it is 70% lawyers and 30% engineers. You may think you can tell one from the other on sight, but chances are you can't. No matter how much like an engineer you think someone you meet looks, odds are pretty much 70% he's a lawyer.
So this guy had a 25% chance of being right. It was a losing bet even before taking account of the fact that only someone of extreme privilege or few responsibilities would consider that second $500,000 to have the same utility (value to him) as the first $500,000. This is why the HLS young punk theme resonates. It is also why he's the first guy who ever guessed on the $1,000,000 question without knowing for sure what the answer was.
A related point, demonstrated in an exercise we did in grad school -- people think they know more than they do about things they don't know. Take somethiing no one knows but thinks they have an idea about , like how many square miles is Cyprus. Then ask everyone to write down their 50% confidence interval -- i.e. I am 50% sure that it is between 1000 and 2000 square miles. Then ask for the 99% confidence interval, i.e.; I am 99% sure it is between 500 and 3500 square miles. We found that almost all of us were outside our 50% confidence level and about half of us were outside our 99% confidence level. That's a very typical result, and people do worse the more education they have.
So this outcome was predictable given a highly educated (doesn't mean wise) contestant who seems not to feel the need to count every doillar, which of course is your average young HLS grad who gets a $160,000 salary for the skill of having gone to school (at least until the recession hit),
Finally, there is nothing prodigous about graduating law school at 24. All it means is you turned 5 the summer or fall of your kindergarden year and went through college in four years and then straight to law school. You don't even have to skip a grade. Lots of people do it.
Do Harvard Grads need to take the bar if applying for paralegal?
PUSSY FART AND SHART ALL NIGHT LONG.
-CWT 05 NY FEMALE ASSOCIATE
hey that's great for man just coming out of college. that attorney really look nice.
Is it sad I knew the answer? I need to get out and be amongst people more
Lat: Can you not stroke every cock that comes your way? What if Elie talked about every female lawyer referenced in terms of her jug size? It's obnoxious, that's all.
I knew it was Fresca, too! Because older folks are always surprised when a 20-something drinks a Fresca.
anyone have the questions he got right? I want to see if I am smarter than this douche
Why has no one mentioned this douchebag's hair?
The fact is he had no real reason to eliminate any answer choice. He had a 25% chance of getting it right, and would've been smart to walk away.
the key point is that you are not playing this game over and over ala poker.
you don't make decisions on expected value when the risk is this high.
taking it to the extreme, you don't take a 51% chance of winning a million dollars if the alternative is having your legs cut off.
Isn't Bert Fields around 80 years old?
Heck, I suck at math, but even I was surprised at Basin's judgment. Of course I don't know anything about his personal finances.....but for the average working stiff the fist $500,000 could pay off your student loans and buy a condo. The second $500,000 is just play money.......I don't know anyone that would have gone for the million in this situation.
Harvard = TTT
Even GULC grads knew the answer to that one.
He should have really attended business school. That way he would have learned how to assess risks. I don't think they teach you how to do that at Harvard Law. The probability assessment is laughable at best.
Big H
He should have really attended business school. That way he would have learned how to assess risks. I don't think they teach you how to do that at Harvard Law. The probability assessment is laughable at best.
Big H
Handsome?
Lat, I wonder about you sometimes.
i don't think he actually calculated the risk. on the show he noted that MBA's are "risk-loving" and seemed enamored at that thought. the problem is that good MBA students and grads love (and take) only those risks that are calculated to be winners. he does not seem to know the saying: Bulls make money, bears make money , pigs get slaughtered.
How is a 70% chance at winning 1 MM a better risk than a 100% chance at winning 500 M, precisely?
What are they teaching kids at Harvard Law?
The math-related comments are obnoxious. Please moderate.
And a big thank you to Captain Obvious.
Sure it was reckless and stupid of him, but he did use his last lifeline and yoohoo was a strong plurality. The audience is generally fairly reliable, though I haven't seen the show in a good five years
Here is the problem with most of y'all's math. If you assume that the $475K was "his" money, then his expected payoff if he does NOT make the wager isn't $500K....it's $0.
The correct analysis is: .70 x 500K - .30 x 475K = 207K
So if he makes the "bet," his expected payoff is 207K. If he passes on the bet, his expected payoff is 0. So question his judgment on the 70%, but not his math.
Think of it like this: if someone came up to you on the street and said, "hey, I'll bet my $5.00 against your $4.75 that I can put the numbers 1 through 10 in a hat and pick out an 8,9, or 10 on my first pull," you would take that wager.
His elimination of V8 and A&W was pure guessing. His reasoning that he had a 70% chance is retarded. He wanted to look like a hotshot like John Carpenter and got owned.
If you look on it as return on invested capital, his last bet was stupid unless he actually knew the answer, and most of the contestants who pass on the last question are correct.
Each time he won, the money was his and no longer relevant to the next bet or at risk. So what he did on the last bet was put down 475 on a 50/50 chance of making 350. His earlier bets had much higher rates of return (the initial bet having a divide by zero rate of return). As he continued to win, the rate of return on his capital declined, with the last bet having the least return of all.
Would you bet $475,000 on a 50/50 chance to win $350,000?
Stupid bet.
You only get so many chances at a million
Ted Kennedy would have gotten it right!
Who cares about the math?? He got it wrong!
How do you get on who wants to be a millionaire?
He must feel very uncomfortable if he is a hetero when he hears about lat's chilling comments about his looks. Yikes!
Headline should be:
WHO WANTS THIS DORK TO COMB HIS HAIR?
137, you need to audition. They're holding them in NYC from now until November or so. Just go to the website.
I think the toy store just sold your future domain name, Ken Basin. With all your smarts I wonder if you had foresight. Maybe you can find a million dollars there?
"I would have thought that the correct answer is A&W, but if I was not 100% then I would just take the money and run."
Same. Actually, I would do the same with $50,000 (though I suppose at that point you have lifelines, 50% elimination, etc.).
I would've guessed A & W b/c it's full-sugar, like Coke, whereas Fresca's a diet drink. That being said, I most certainly would not have risked $500K on such plainly half-assed logic.
I think he watched "Slumdog Millionaire" one too many times. Obviously it was a complete guess, although he is trying to save face and say it was not.
All this talk about expected value misses the mark. The EV analysis implicitly assumes that one will get twice as much pleasure/happiness/satisfaction from $1,000,000 than that person would get from $500,000. That's simply not true. The more of something we have, the less we value it (law of diminishing marginal utility). The contestant would not have been that much better off with $1,000,000 than he would have been with $500,000, but he would have been significantly better off with $500,000 than with $0. So, even though the EV of his decision was $700k and that's certainly better than $500k, he failed to consider that he would have been very happy with 500k and only moderatly happier with $1,000,000. He also failed to consider that going with the decision for the EV of 700k also meant he was exposing himself to a 50% chance of getting nothing, which would have (and did) make him very unhappy. So, to recap: option 1 (taking the 500k and running) would have made him very happy, whereas option 2 (taking a risk on the $1 million) presented him with a 50/50 option of either being slightly happier or very unhappy. The expected value of option 2 is really only "slighly happy" (after balancing the 50% chance of being really happy with $1 million and unhappy with $0), whereas the expected value of option 1 is "very happy" because he's got a guaranteed $500k and a 100% chance of being very happy with it.
Of course it's not surprising that a law student would look at $$$ rather than happiness, otherwise he would have chosen a different vocation.
144, you go on ad nauseum about happiness and fail to analyze how happy a 24 year old kid would be if he won the million dollars on a game show. Not to mention how unhappy he'd be if he had the right answer and didn't play it.
Fail.
145 - would he have been half has happy if he'd won $500k? And he didn't know the right answer you fool.
Double fail.
Yo Lat,,
You forgot Miami attorney Dan Blonsky - only the second millionaire on WWTBAM, and the first attorney. To be clear, I only know because I used to work with him.
d$
144 - you are a schmuck. Your pussified "happiness" factor plays no part in calculating the expected payoff on a wager. And besides, you're really just talking about risk aversion. And you are a pussy, did I mention that?
148 - you are really a moron. If you knew anything about risk aversion you'd know that most people are risk averse precisely because of the diminishing marginal utility of money. It has nothing to do with being a pussy, you have no idea what you are talking about, and have the emotional maturity of a 9 year old. (And you're a pussy too).
I wouldn't want this kid working on my case.
148 -- either independently wealthy (I doubt it) or uneducated dolt. 148 plays his weekly poker game with 50 cent and dollar blinds and calculates the expected payoffs of his wagers. Likely went to useless liberal arts college and knows nothing of economics. Poor bastard.
No one knows anything about economics, 151, not even the so-called experts.
" Not to mention how unhappy he'd be if he had the right answer and didn't play it. "
Yeah, it would suck to have only won $500,000.
Good God lawyers are morons.
153: So true. The pain of walking away with jack far outweighs the hypothetical joy of winning $1,000,000.
This guy is not sincere. Look at how he tried on his blog to rationalize his insane, arrogant, mindless demand that Regis give him the $1 million:
"Re: the "now give me the million dollars" comment. I honestly didn't realize I said it, even after watching the show tonight, until someone noted it on the board here. I actually had to go back to my DVR to rewatch to see if it was true, and was very surprised to learn that it was. Whoever characterized it as saying "Big Money" on Wheel of Fortune/Press Your Luck/etc. was dead on...it's just one of those things you say when you need to pump yourself up, I guess. I had no sense then or now that I was entitled to the million dollars (though boy would I have liked to get it)."
That's pure B.S., like when a witness tells you during a deposition, "I can't remember." He can try as hard as he wants to spin it, but the fact that he would say something that vile shows his true colors. He has hurt his career, and he is spinning as hard as he can to try to look wise and nice. Doth protest too much.
No sympathy. Ken summer clerked at my former firm. Smart? Yes. Arrogant? Oh yeah! Hubris? Beyond measure. Glad to see he ended this way -- although he will not learn a single lesson from it.
156: what firm? so I know where else to avoid.
This kid should not be believed for the simple reason that about a minute into the question he said, "this is something you know or you dont, this isn't a reasoning one." To buy his articulated reasoning after the fact is absurd. In fact, his reasoning, although sounding fancy and well thought out, is superficial at best (not suprising, he did go to Harvard). He gives gut instincts such as LBJ wouldn't touch V8, but provides no reasoning for such a guess. Additionally, he says that there is no reason that LBJ would have had both coke & A&W; but why not? The fact is that he is rationalizing using what he now knows to be the outcome, it is a logical fallacy. Gut instincts don't give you a 70% chance to guess correctly. He messed up, plain and simple.
1. Yoo Hoo did not have significant nation-wide distribution in th emid-60's
2. Fresca is made by Coke and the WH probably did not contract with both local bottlers for Pepsi and Coke.
If one is going to risk everything on a guess, the strongest hunch would be Fresca.
The guess this guy made was plainly stoopid.