Facebook’s acquisition WhatsApp for $19 billion is one of the largest tech deals in history. It dwarfs Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 — and even that was considered an astonishing number.
Since $19 billion is a sum most of us can hardly comprehend (and because it’s fun to imagine), we came up with a list of other things Mark Zuckerberg and his team could have purchased for $19 billion.
- Mark Zuckerberg and crew could’ve built four new World Trade Center skyscrapers, at a cost of $3.94 billion each.
- In December 2013, the UN asked for a record-breaking $13 billion for worldwide humanitarian relief operations in 2014, half of which will aid Syria. The purchase price of WhatsApp could’ve paid for all of that and more.
- Mark Zuckerberg’s favorite food is the bacon-wrapped hot dog. Some California vendors sell these for $1.50 each, meaning Facebook could’ve bought enough to feed Mark Zuckerberg one hot dog every second for the next 400 years. ‘ve paid for all of that and more.
- Facebook’s top executives Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, David Ebersman, and Mike Schroepfer would look pretty stylish cruising the San Francisco Bay in four Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers ($4.5 billion each)
- Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines and killed more than 5,000 people. The recovery may cost $6 billion — less than one-third of what Facebook paid for WhatsApp.
- 76,000 trips to space on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic
What would you do if you had that kind of money?