The optimal cutoff would probably have been $20 million rather than the $10 million that was chosen, but that change would have been too much for a lot of people. If I had only presented options from $1M up to $20M, then the group probably would have chosen $5M no matter how much I argued for $20M. I had to put the $50M number in people's heads so $10M seemed less of a jump.

Ya that's kind of what it seems like you did... throwing a big number out on purpose so that $9M jump would be "rational." The math in my head says you could weight figures on estimated acceptance probability. By throwing out a low probability figure first before a relatively higher probability acceptance figure - versus just presenting them with a reasonably high probability figure - give a better result. It is almost like expected value.

So it's like suggestion; the ability to make people believe?