For the sake of argument, we're imagining both startups have equal levels of investing/funding secured, equally talented founders and employee, equal access to equal networks (i.e. I'm imagining something like defense or aerospace, to make it a little easier to imagine a startup getting $4.5b in qualified leads), equal technology or IP, equal EVERYTHING as per your hypothetical... and yet somehow one startup has $4.5b in qualified leads and the other does not.

I truthfully would rather buy into the one with zero leads, because presumably, under ceteris paribus conditions, that startup must be priced at a discount to the other one, since it has no leads... and yet, EVERYTHING ELSE is equal (equally strong team, equally good tech, equal networks, etc.), and so it seems to me, that I would be able to buy a larger equity stake for a discounted price, and have EQUAL odds of winning future business since this startup is EQUAL in all other respects expect for the odd qualified leads backlog.

Would you rather buy shares in NVIDIA, or buy shares in another company that is equal to NVIDIA in every way (same talent, same tech, same everything), but just happens to have no backlog of confirmed orders? I think I'd like to buy this shadow-clone of NVIDIA, because I would buy into the thesis that there is more room for growth, vs buying the incumbent... after all, ceteris paribus, right?

It's like me saying "all things being equal except you're a duck"

You can't be a duck and have all things equal. Same way a company can't be equal to another company and have a $4bn backlog. This isn't an independent variable like the color of your logo.

> PE would probably be satisfied to make half the profit and double the margin, especially if it also happens to position the company for a more favorable sale. Would you rather buy a business that's at 5 or 10% margin?

So PE doesn't maximize profit but instead maximizes profit margin? This makes no sense. Why?