the.com/upside
The reward you imagine while ignoring the risk standing right next to it.
means The potential benefit or positive side of a situation, especially one weighed against its drawbacks.
from Simply 'up' plus 'side' — originally a literal term for the upper or higher side of an object, dating back to Middle English. It drifted into figurative use, especially in finance and gambling, where things have an 'upside' (potential gain) and a 'downside' (potential loss). The physical geometry of up versus down became the shorthand for optimism versus risk.
- finance origin
- Comes from upside risk, the good kind of volatility
- asymmetry
- Investors chase it precisely because downside is capped at zero
- linguistic trick
- Turns a direction into a destiny
- optimist's favorite word
- Lets you say maybe without sounding naive