“It’s not about the Money, Money, Money” says the song “Price Tag” from Jessie J but today we will only focus on Money, Wealth and Success. We have prepared 55 incredible fun facts about these topics so make sure to check them out.
1. Around 35 percent of all billionaires have never graduated from a university.
2. According to surveys among US prisoners, cigarettes are no longer the accepted currency behind bars, but ramen noodles.
3. In Norway, you pay half the amount of normal tax in December, to have more money for Christmas.
4. The 100 richest people in the world earned so much money last year that they could end global poverty four times over.
5. The production cost of one penny is 1.7 cents.
6. It has been established that whenever actress Anne Hathaway is trending in social media, automated investment bank trading algorithms automatically buy more shares in Berkshire Hathaway.
7. In order to avoid a long-standing dispute, the CEO’s of Southwest Airline and Stevens Aviation decided to resolve their problem by arm wrestling. The winner was given the right to use a specific advertising slogan.
8. On the island of Yap in the western Pacific, the islanders used stone wheels as a monetary unit for centuries. The largest stone wheel had a diameter of 12 feet and weighed more than five tons.
9. In 1983, 90 percent of US media were still in the hands of 50 different companies. Today, only six companies control 90 percent of the media landscape in the USA.
10. The founder of “Victoria’s Secret” sold the company for a million dollars in 1982 and committed suicide in 1993 by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.
11. If the US state of California were a separate country, it would be the fifth largest economy in the world and thus economically larger than France or Great Britain. If you want more facts like this make sure to check out our California facts.
12. The South African currency “Rand” derives its name from the mountain range “Witwatersrand” in South Africa. The area is known for its numerous gold deposits, which brought the country great prosperity. Interested in more Africa Facts? Make sure to check out our article about that continent.
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13. NBA athlete Allen Iverson signed a lifetime advertising contract with Reebok in 2001. For this he will receive an annual sum of 800,000 dollars until he is 55 years old. After that, he will receive a single lump sum of 32 million dollars from the company.
14. According to Bill Gates, just a small amount of poor countries will exist in 2035.
15. The Jewish population is only 0.2 percent, yet 20 percent of all Nobel prizes have been awarded to people of the Jewish faith.
16. In 1997, Microsoft employed 31,000 people worldwide, of which 10,000 already were millionaires because of their participation in the company. If you want to read the full story to that fact make sure to check out our article about it.
17. Multimillionaire Forrest Fenn, hid a treasure worth two million dollars in the Rocky Mountains. In order to find it, you have to solve a number of puzzles. Until today, nobody has found the treasure. If you are looking for even more background to that story you should read our dedicated article about that fun fact! You can read it here.
18. Benjamin Franklin left the cities of Boston and Philadelphia 2,000 dollars each in his will, with the instruction that the money could not be touched for 200 years. Due to inflation and clever investments, the two cities ended up receiving 6.5 million dollars in 1990.
19. Even though he is already dead, Michael Jackson has earned more than 100,000,000 dollars per year in the last seven years. In monetary terms, his most successful year was 2016, when he earned a total of over 825,000,000 dollars.
20. Two of the richest men in the world – Bill Gates and Warren Buffett – officially stated that they will donate 90 percent of their assets when they pass away.
21. Although the Incas had a huge empire, they did not possess money. The inhabitants paid their taxes in the form of man power and got food in exchange for this. We wrote a great article only covering this fact so make sure to check it out here.
22. J. K. Rowling – the author of the Harry Potter books – is no longer a billionaire. She has donated most of her fortune.
23. Based on current extrapolations Bill Gates could be the first trillionaire in the world.
24. Only eight percent of the world’s money is physical. The rest exists digitally.
25. Henry Ford was the first tycoon to not let his employees work on Saturdays and Sundays, so that they could spend more time with their cars. Thus the weekend was born.
26. According to estimates, the iPhone is the most profitable product in the world. About 50 percent of the selling price is Apple’s profit.
27. The term “money laundering” can be traced back to Al Capone, as he used Laundromats for this purpose.
28. If you had invested $100 in Bitcoin in 2010, you’d be worth more than $70 million now.
29. Up until his death, F. Scott Fitzgerald was convinced that he had achieved nothing in his life. Two years later, his book “The Great Gatsby” was sent to soldiers in World War II and became an immediate success. To this day, the book sells about 500,000 copies every year.
30. In 1987 American Airlines was able to save 40,000 dollars because they used one less olive in their salads.
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31. The most common zodiac sign among billionaires is Aquarius. The least common one is Cancer.
32. Drug baron Pablo Escobar offered Colombia to pay off the country’s entire foreign debt of 20 billion dollars if it did not extradite him to the USA.
33. Until the 20th century, Ugandans could still pay with the shell of a cowrie snail. At the height of the currency’s strength, you could buy a woman for two snails.
34. In the early 1980s, Pablo Escobar was responsible for 80 percent of the world’s cocaine production.
35. For his first role in Star Wars Episode 4, Han Solo actor Harrison Ford received $10,000 in 1977, while for Episode 7 in 2015 he was paid $20 million.
36. It is estimated that about 70 percent of all Sicilian businesses pay protection money to the mafia. The average amount of the payment is between 200 and 5,000 euros. As a result, the Sicilian mafia Cosa Nostra supposedly takes in ten billion euros every year.
37. For his role as Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. was paid 500,000 dollars in the first part. For the first Avengers film, however, his pay had already increased to 50 million dollars.
38. Sony earns more money as an insurance company than by selling electronics.
39. The author J. K. Rowling was the first person in the world who became a billionaire by selling books.
40. In 1999 the founders of Google wanted to sell their company to one of its biggest competitors “Excite” for one million dollars but were rejected. Looking for only fun facts about Google? We have them here.
41. In 2010 a pizza was sold for 10,000 Bitcoins. At today’s exchange rate this would be four million dollars.
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42. Pablo Escobar – the world’s biggest drug lord – had so much cash that he had to spend 2,500 dollars a month on rubber bands that held his money together.
43. In 2012, the CEO of Lenovo received an annual bonus of three million dollars. Instead of keeping the money for himself, he distributed it among his 10,000 employees.
44. In 2005 and 2007, graffiti artist David Choe painted several works of art in Facebook’s offices. Instead of cash, however, he was paid with Facebook shares, which were worth over $200 million when the company went public. We found a lot more fun facts about Facebook which you can find here.
45. London is the city with the most millionaires in the world. It is followed by New York City in second and Tokyo in third place. London is a great city so we dedicated a full article about it. Read more than 35 fun facts about the city of London.
46. In 2012 a British man named Wesley Carrington bought a metal detector and within 20 minutes found gold from the Roman Age worth 100,000 pounds.
47. The drug lord Pablo Escobar had so much cash in his home that rats ate about a billion dollars of his wealth per year.
48. It takes an average employee at McDonald’s about seven months to earn the amount the CEO makes in one hour. McDonald’s is another company we wrote a dedicated article for. If you are looking for more trivia and facts about that company you should definitely read this article.
49. When the historic Plaza Hotel in New York opened its doors in 1907, one night cost $2.50, which by today’s standards would be about $64. Today, however, you have to pay more than $1,000 per night.
50. The average Bugatti customer owns 84 different vehicles, three airplanes and a yacht.
51. A regular inspection including oil change on a Bugatti Veyron costs 21,000 dollars.
52. During the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s, banker Pat Munroe advised his customers in the city of Quincy, Florida, to buy shares in the beverage company Coca-Cola. Over the next few years, the share price rose so much that countless people in Quincy quickly became millionaires and the city became the richest city in the USA.
53. In 2017, Ed Sheeran paid more taxes in the UK than Amazon and Starbucks.
54. Bill Gates has already donated more than 28 billion dollars since 2007. It is estimated that this has saved about six million lives.
55. The copyright to the song “Happy birthday to you” expired in 2016 in the USA and in 2017 in the European Union. Until then, royalties had to be paid to Warner Music whenever the song was played on radio or television or in a cinema.
How did you like our 55 fun facts about success, money and wealth? We tried our best to only present you the most interesting and most unbelievable fun facts you can imagine so we hope we delivered what we promised. If you like to see more interesting trivia facts just follow us on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram for daily new fun facts about everything.