- [Narrator] In his song, Billionaire, Bruno Mars sings about how badly he wants to join the elite group of people who make ordinary millionaires
seem like peasants. What does it mean, however,
in day-to-day terms, to be a billionaire? How much purchasing power does one billion dollars really provide? And more importantly, from
a statistical standpoint, how likely is Bruno Mars to have his wish of wealth come true? Lets find out now! (upbeat music) So, How Many Billionaires are There? While a billion dollars
can buy a lot of things, one thing it can't buy
is a football stadium filled with billionaires. Why? Because as of May 2018, there
are only 2,208 billionaires in the world. In the U.S., there are only
585 billionaires in total, but there are more in
China, which has 819. That means all the
billionaires in the world would severely under-fill
any average stadium. To put things into perspective,
off America's coasts, there are over 13,000 manatees. This means that there are 26 times more of the endangered water
mammal's around the coast than billionaires on land. To put things in more
serious terms, however, the chances of you being a billionaire, by current world population figures, is roughly one in three
and a half million. In contrast, the chances of
you getting struck by lightning are one in 700,000, which means you're five times more likely to encounter a lightly-fried
lightning strike victims before you run into a billionaire. While we know the chances
of becoming a billionaire are as small as their fortunes are large, have you ever considered
exactly what it means to have a billion dollars? The following list outlines 10 examples of what exactly it means
to have a billion dollars! You'd be richer than 13 Nations! The individual Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, of the world's
13 poorest countries amount to less than the
net worth of a billionaire. Island nations, St. Kitts and Nevis, bring in modest yearly incomes that would leave some
American CEO's wondering how they manage to pay for
the country's yacht club fees. A billion dollars is so much that, not only do entire countries
not manage to make it, but some places on Earth
wouldn't have that much capital even after pooling their wealth
with that of other States in their income bracket. The combined purchasing power of the four poorest countries on Earth, Tuvalu, Kiribati, The
Marshall Islands, and Palau, would still be 254 million dollars shy of the watermark for billionaire status! Number nine, you could stack it high. The physical dimensions
of a billion dollars is impressive, to say the least. If doled out in hundred dollar bills piled on top of one another vertically, the resulting stack would ascend a staggering 3,585 feet! If this sounds like a
mountain of money to you, the reason why is because that altitude puts some actual summits to shame! England's Highest Mountain, Scafell Pike, at 3208 feet, is nearly 400
feet below the peaks of wealth created by our hypothetical
billion of Benjamins. Height, however, is not the only dimension in which a billion dollars is astonishing. At 20,000 pounds, a billion dollars worth of hundred dollar bills tips the scales at over twice the weight
of an average killer whale. And if that boggles your mind, imagine the height of a
stack of dollar bills. That stack would reach over
400,000 feet in height, poking out into space,
which according to the US, starts at 330,000 feet. If you thought that was big, imagine a trillion dollars. The height of a stack of one
trillion one dollar bills will measure 67,866 miles. This would reach more than one fourth the way from the earth to the moon. Number eight, you could buy 5,000 houses. At $188,900, the median
cost of a home in America would hardly make a
billionaire bat an eye. In fact, a billionaire could purchase a thousand houses at the median cost, and still have 23 times
more money left over than the entire GDP of Tuvalu. With statistics like
these, it's almost a wonder why no billionaire has
ever purchased Tuvalu and then built a thousand houses upon it. Or, for billionaire's with
less of an imperialist streak, becoming acquainted with
the scope of their wealth could be accomplished by
buying 5,000 new homes. With this amount of abodes, they could sleep in a
new house every night and not have to use one
they've already used before, for a period of almost 14 years! Number seven, you could buy a new castle every day for a year While experts have a hard time agreeing on the exact cost of the average castle, the most commonly used metric
to estimate their costs is to multiply the cost
of the average normal, non-drawbridge-sporting home by 12. Basically, that's the
historical cost-comparison between castles and homes. At a rate of $188,900
for the average home, we can see that the cost of a castle should land somewhere near two
point three million dollars. At this rate, a billionaire could afford to stock his or her kingdom
with over 430 castles, more than enough for over
a year and two months of new castles every day; though, they might want to buy only 300 to save enough money to cover
the water bill for the moats! Number six, you could
live an ordinary life for an extraordinarily long time. The average Joe makes a median, personal income of $31,099 every year. To put in perspective how
little this is relative to a billion dollars,
consider the following: If a billionaire gave an average American just one penny out of
every dollar they had, the recipient of those
pennies would find themselves with 10 million dollars, or 322 times richer than
they were originally! If a billionaire decided to put themselves on a financial diet and
restrict their yearly spending to match the limits of the common man, they could live without
running out of money for 32,155 years. However, I suspect that
they'd have to invest a far greater amount
than the average salary to purchase the therapies
necessary to live 32 millennia. Number five, you could buy
all remaining wild tigers and clone them! Years of poaching and habitat decline have reduced the number of wild tigers to thresholds almost as low as those of wild billionaires. With only 3200 of the 100,000 tigers that once roamed the jungles remaining, something needs to be done
to increase their population. Fortunately, at market
rates of $7500 per big cat, assuming the laws of
economics don't apply, and not taking into
account costs of upkeep, a billionaire could afford to buy 42 times the entire stock that exists, if that's even possible. But, it is! With average cloning
rates at an all time low of $150,000, he or she
could afford to clone all of his or her new cats without losing their billionaire status, if you round upwards, as they'll still be
worth 520 million dollars after they clone 3200 cats. Number four, you could go to
space everyday for a decade. With only 566 people having visited space throughout recorded history, becoming an astronaut
is one of the few things that's less likely than
becoming a billionaire. However, now that Virgin Galactic offers the opportunity to
venture to infinity and beyond for about the same amount
as an average cloned tiger, it's likely that the
number of billionaires taking flight will, quite
literally, take off. Deposits for Virgin Galactic's foray into the final frontier start
for as little as $250,000. At costs this low, a billionaire
could start their day with coffee and a space flight every day for more than a decade before their finances hit a black hole. Though private space travel
has only been offered until now by the Russian Space Agency, Virgin Galactic's growing
number of deposits means that the days of aristo-nauts zipping through the stratosphere
are looming on the horizon. Number three, you could be the
richest person in Zimbabwe. The nation of Zimbabwe is known
for its big game reserves, unspoiled wilderness,
and majestic waterfalls. However, while it's known for its wealth of natural resources, it's not famous for its booming coffers. Indeed, this culturally and
environmentally rich nation is hardly a South-of-the-Equator
Silicon Valley, and its inhabitants, much
like the rest of Africa, lead lives whose fulfillment
comes less from money and more from the ample assortment of natural wonders surrounding them. As a result, Zimbabwe's
richest man has a net worth of $600 million, according to Forbes. Though this amount is hardly
something to scoff at, it pales in comparison
to the waves of green that swell from the endless well that is a billionaire's bank account. Consequently, a billionaire
tired of being one out of more than five
hundred can move to Zimbabwe where their wealth will put them in a financial weight class of their own. Number two, you could place a belt of dollar bills around the earth. Mother Earth is a woman with curves, and with a circumference of 24,901 miles, her midsection is far from petite. Perhaps as a result of the Earth's size, historical attempts to adorn it with belts have relied on imaginary
circles, such as The Equator. However, a modern day
billionaire could trace a trail of dollar bills three
times around the planet before having to ask his or her friend for some extra cash, though I'd imagine friends
would be less than sympathetic to the cause after hearing of how they blew their
fortune on a belt of bills. At 6 point 14 inches in length a piece, it would take over 256 million singles to cover Earth's 1.57
billion inch circumference. Though I'm not sure why
anyone would want to spend over 250 million dollars
to turn the Equator into a belly dancer's belt, I'd bet it'd give them
something interesting to observe during their
daily space flights. Number one, you could
start a private air force. For as little as 85 million dollars, a person can purchase a Lockheed
Martin F-35 Lightning Two. This space-age testament to the evolution of modern aeronautics is
truly a marvel to behold: its features include short-distance
and vertical take offs, max speeds of 1200 mph, and more missiles than you could shake a stick at. These airborne Hot Rods are
the Navy's ride of choice, and, if you were a billionaire, you could own a new one
for every day of the week. Why might you need your own
private air force fleet, you may ask? Well, in the event that you
took my earlier suggestion and decided to take a swing at cloning-based tiger conservation, you might need a powerful way
of asserting your dominance over neighborhood poachers. Or, perhaps, you just
need a way to incentivize your daughter's prom
date to treat her well. So, as you've seen, a billion dollars is more money than most
people will ever see in their lifetimes. It's a monumental amount of money that can fund activities and ideas whose extravagance and eccentricity makes for the stuff of legends. Would you go cloning tigers rampantly if you had a billion dollars, or would you invest in
more humanitarian causes? Let me know in the comments
section down below! And, since we're statistically unlikely to make a billion dollars, please hit the like button
if you enjoyed this video, to help us gain the next best thing, a billion likes! (upbeat electronic music)
