it's a bit of work and effort to give a talk. And he is rich enough to not need to do it for the money. Time is important. If he'd be doing it for free he'd probably get too many requests. Adding a high $ can simply help filter down to a reasonable thing.to only the largest locations and highest number of people.

I dont want to do contract work but people ask so I just quote an unreasonably high number and on occasion someone bites. I dont need the money so I need an easy filter.