This is human nature. It happens everywhere, the most commonplace example is a lottery ticket: that is a negative sum game. Venture capital is also a negative sum game (EDIT: I'm actually not sure about this, the winnings of top VCs might outweigh the losses of the majority).
Risk hungry people will pay a premium for increased upside. For example, they will prefer a win 20-lose 30 game over a win 10-lose 0, because 20 > 10.
Venture capital is not an example of this phenomenon. VCs accept high risk/variance in order to achieve high expected value, and it is not a negative sum game.
Risk hungry people will pay a premium for increased upside. For example, they will prefer a win 20-lose 30 game over a win 10-lose 0, because 20 > 10.