this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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I think it helps to convert the same ratios to easily understood dollars.
So $1 is to $1000 (one thousand) what $1000 dollars is to $1,000,000 (one million) is what $1,000,000 (one million) is to 1,000,000,000 (one billion).
Best illustration I had read was the "stairwell" analogy.
Each step is a net worth of +$100k.
10 steps on the staircase, you have $1M. Imagine being 10 steps up on the stairs - higher than most, but really you can still see them, relate..
Now if 10 stpes = 1M, 10,000 steps = 1B.
The empire state building is ~1500 steps. 1B is about 6.5 Empire State buildings of height.
Musk has a net worth of 450B.
That's 450 x 10,000, that's 4,500,000 steps, or about 3,000 Empire State buildings, or comfortably in low earth orbit.
So when you look down at those on ground floor or those 10 steps above ground, the difference to you is not only inconsequential, it's literally unnoticeable
That's a good one as well.
If the Empire State building has 1,500 steps, then 6.5 Empire State buildings would have 9750 steps
Hence why he said about
9750 ~ 10k
The USA will nod and smile at this simple and straightforward explanation then complain that no system can possibly be intuitive if it's based on multiples of 10
Give me 5280 feet to the mile and units that may represent weight or volume depending on context, or give me death