To make matters worse, corp dev people are absolutely aware of the dynamics --- they're more aware of them than you are, because this is their entire job, where you might engage with it once or twice in a whole career --- and are selected for their expertise at manipulating the dynamic. They will, if they're seriously targeting you, deliberately bait a hook and keep you on the line long enough for walking away from a deal to be especially painful.

I think Paul Graham pretty much has this topic locked up and can't see how you'd express it better.