Things Jeff Bezos Could Do With His Money (if they were possible)

Trying to Make 188.2 Billion Slightly More Comprehensible

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

According to a recent Forbes article, Jeff Bezos's personal net worth reached as high as $188.2 billion as of July 9, 2020. Now, Amazon stock took a little bit of hit today so it’s probably down from that number. However, I wanted to take a look at how big this number actually is because it is impossible for most people to actually comprehend $188,200,000,000. So here goes:

• If Bezos was able to liquidate his entire fortune today for the full value, he could cut a check to every person in the U.S. for $572.04 (assuming a current population of 329 million people). Or if he really wanted to flex he could send every person on Earth $24.44 (extrapolating a 7.7 billion population based on 2018 data).
• If he decided he wanted to liquidate everything in exchange for physical currency he could singlehandedly remove 15.7% of all U.S. currency currently in circulation. (188.2 billion of the 1.2 trillion dollars)
• If he wanted all of his money in gold it would be 6,226,840 pounds or to get rid of another large number 3,113 tons of gold. (As I write this gold is currently $1,889 per ounce. There is 16 oz in a pound so one pound of gold has a value of $30,224. 188.2 billion divided by 30,224 equals 6,226,839.6)
• Based on that last number he could afford to give every person in the city limits of Los Angeles (4.05 million) and San Diego (1.45 million) a pound of gold and still have 715,224 pounds left to give to all of the roughly 713,000 citizens of Washington, D.C.
• And the amount of the gold he would have left at the end of the last scenario would still equal more than $67 million.
• Using the median home price for my city, Phoenix, AZ, he could purchase nearly 700,000 homes (188.2 billion/269,175).
• In my home state, North Dakota, he could buy 792,000 homes at their median home price of $237,454. That would be enough for all 762,000 North Dakotans plus 30,000 leftovers for odds and ends.
• A moderately-priced home is nice for the average person but what if he wants to buy something luxurious like say a Boeing 747–8 which could accommodate up to 700 people? Bezos could afford…