Money
This 1-Minute Animation Puts $110 Billion of Wealth in Perspective
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
The short animation helps put this immense amount of wealth in perspective, but it also has raises a fair question: why is Bill Gates’ net worth growing if he signed The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away at least half of his net worth to philanthropic causes?
The disconnect lies in the fact that fluctuations in Gates’ net worth are largely connected to the movement of Microsoft’s stock price, as well as the stock market in general.
Even though he’s no longer an active officer of the tech giant, Gates still owns close to 1% of outstanding shares — and with Satya Nadella at the helm, Microsoft’s market capitalization has soared to a record-setting $1.15 trillion. Gates also has over 60% of his assets invested in the stock market, which sits at all-time highs as well.
For the above reasons, Bill Gates gave away $35 billion in wealth in 2019, but still ended up gaining $16 billion in overall net worth.
Money
Visualizing All of the U.S. Currency in Circulation
This graphic illustrates the amount of U.S. currency in circulation globally, by denomination, based on data from the Federal Reserve.
Visualizing All of the U.S. Currency in Circulation
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Have you ever wondered how much U.S. currency is in circulation?
Every year, the U.S. Federal Reserve submits a print order for U.S. currency to the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). The BEP will then print billions of notes in various denominations, from $1 bills to $100 bills.
In this graphic, we’ve used the latest Federal Reserve data to visualize the approximate number of bills for each denomination globally, as of Dec. 31, 2022.
Breakdown of U.S. Currency in Circulation
The following table lists all of the data we used to create the visualization above. Note that value figures were rounded for simplicity.
Type of Bill | Number of notes in circulation (billions) | Value ($B) |
---|---|---|
$1 | 14.3 | $14B |
$2 | 1.5 | $3B |
$5 | 3.5 | $18B |
$10 | 2.3 | $23B |
$20 | 11.5 | $230B |
$50 | 2.5 | $125B |
$100 | 18.5 | $1,850B |
$500-10,000* | 0.0004 | n/a |
*$500-10,000 bills are listed as a range, and a total circulation of 0.0004 billion. Not included in graphic.
From these numbers, we can see that $100 bills are the most common bill in circulation, even ahead of $1 bills.
One reason for this is $100 bills have a longer lifespan than smaller denominations, due to people using $100 bills less often for transactions. Some businesses may also decline $100 bills as payment.
Based on 2018 estimates from the Federal Reserve, a $100 bill has a lifespan of over 20 years, which is significantly higher than $1 bills (7 years) and $5 bills (5 years).
If you’re interested in more visualizations on the U.S. dollar, consider this animated chart which shows how the dollar overtook the British pound as the world’s most prominent reserve currency.
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