A Billion Dollars, Visualized
A billion is hard to picture. Here it is in time, in $100 bills and in spending.
How it works
Time: 1 billion seconds divided by 31,557,600 seconds a year is about 31.7 years. 1 million seconds is about 11.6 days.
Bills: $1 billion is 10 million $100 bills. Each US bill is about 0.0043 inches thick and weighs about 1 gram (U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing). The 4% yield used for income is illustrative, not a forecast.
Quick answers
How long is a billion seconds?
About 31.7 years.
How many $100 bills make $1 billion?
10 million.
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Watch billionaires explain how they built it, in their own words.