This 1-Minute Animation Puts $110 Billion of Wealth in Perspective

November 25, 2019 By Jeff Desjardins

Just over a week ago, Bill Gates reclaimed the familiar title of the world’s richest person after seeing his net worth jump to the $110 billion mark.

The recent gains can be attributed to a surge in Microsoft’s stock price, after the tech company surprised the market by winning a $10 billion cloud contract from the Pentagon. This also pushed Gates past fellow Seattle billionaire Jeff Bezos, who currently holds a $108.7 billion fortune.

With these numbers topping a hundred billion dollars, they can be difficult to comprehend. Luckily for us, Twitter user @betty__cam put together a short animation that simplifies things.

$110 Billion, Visualized

The following one minute animation starts with the median household wealth in the United States of $61,937, working its way up to the Bill Gates fortune of $110 billion:

Along the way, the animation points out comparable dollar amounts to put things in perspective.

This includes the amount that people should save for retirement ($1.33 million), Katy Perry’s mansion in Beverly Hills ($19 million), settlements paid by the NYPD in a year ($230 million), and even the wealth of Elon Musk ($27.1 billion).

Millions vs. Billions

Part of the impact of the animation comes as it flips from millions to billions of dollars.

For example, the retirement figure of $1.33 million is clearly a solid chunk of money — but when that turns into a tiny speck in contrast to $1 billion, it’s evident that we’re talking about very different scales.

This is also illustrated when we look at seconds:

1 million seconds = 11.5 days

1 billion seconds = 31.71 years

110 billion seconds = 3,488.1 years

Go back a million seconds in time, and we’re talking about last week — go back Bill Gates’ wealth in seconds, and you’ll be hanging out with the Ancient Babylonians.

The Equities Effect

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/110-billion-wealth-bill-gates/