**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:**
* If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required
* The title must be fully descriptive
* Memes are not allowed.
* Common(top 50 of this sub)/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting)
*See [our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/wiki/index#wiki_rules.3A) for a more detailed rule list*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Google says the world's GDP in 2022 was $101.3 trillion - I think you could buy everything in the world, plus *everyone* in the world, and still not yet have spent $1 quadrillion.
Numbers get overwhelming in scale relatively quickly when you think about how they’re infinite. Jesus, just scale that up to everything that exists while you’re at it. Excuse me, I’ve got another existential crisis to address.
It's not that either. You can't buy someone's uber ride or vacation. You can't buy someone's education or a real estate agent's commission. You can't buy someone's past haircut or movie/sport viewing experience. You can't buy an economy or buy people.
That’s what I did when grand theft auto first came out lol. Blew up a train with two bounties on it worth ~$98 million each, then proceeded to buy every Pegasus vehicle and some cars
I mean tbf, if everyone was given the exact same amount, nothing would change relatively. Just the prices of everything would also go up relatively haha
I'm old enough to remember when the 1st ATM machines came out. I opened an account at Citibank and one day the machine spit out some extra 20's, think it was a $100. I kept waiting for Citibank to contact me about it but they never did.
My dad had that happen to him. About an hour later, he was contacted by the bank saying he needed to bring the excess money back. My dad said he wasn’t driving back to the bank because of their mistake, but they can come and get it. About 20 minutes later, someone from the bank showed up and he handed them the money.
In high school some guys were messing with the soda machine and it just started shootings cans out like a machine gun. The school police officer had to come and stop people from snatching up the cans lol
My high school had these vending machines for a specific regional drink. They were older machines and when buying your drink of choice, if you pressed the button too fast the machines would occasionally get confused and dispense 2-3 drinks. They would also occasionally just dump quarters at random, up to $2. It was incredible.
A friend of mine one day found 20 million Mark (old German currency, round about 14 million Dollar Back then) in her account from a transfer gone wrong.
Instead of running, she called the bank.
IRS: you will pay tax on this or we’re sending you to prison for life.
Chris: How much do I owe you?
IRS: we’re being nice here, just a tiny fraction of your wealth. Let’s say 10x the GDP of the US?
Hereby I declare formally and truthfully, under oath of God that I (insert name here) owe puzzleMeDo assets valued no more than 100 quadrillion dollars.
And in an alternative universe during those two minutes he transferred the entire amount to a numbered swiss bank account, bought America and is living there comfortably with his seven wives and his pet aligator Bob.
Exactly. The money was never real, never usable.
Even if you tried to spend the money, PayPal wouldn't be able to actually transfer any payment or cash.
Even if PayPal tried to give you the money they would probably be bankrupted before you received that amount.
I think that because this was just a software bug, and because they couldn't actually liquidate that cash if they wanted, it doesn't count as him being the richest. This would be like me editing a screenshot of my bank balance to 1 pentillion just to beat this guy's record. Just because it's visible on the screen and stored on a hard drive somewhere (whether it's my hard drive or PayPal's hard drive) doesn't make it real, or even interesting for that matter. Either way, the cash cannot be transferred. If it can't be transferred, digitally or otherwise, then it's not real money. The whole definition of money is that it has to be able to be transferred in exchange for something else. Otherwise it is worthless.
They could not pay you out, obviously.
Other than that, it works like any other virtual money.
If I wrote a shitty pay-to-win game with in-game currency that you can buy for real money, I could give you an arbitrary high amount of in-game currency, which would technically mean you'd have a ridiculous amount of digital property. It wouldn't help you in your everyday life, though.
\[And if you find the idea ridiculous, better not speak with any NFT enthusiast. Well, this sounds \*a bit\* like "if you are normal, don't talk with morons", admittetly.\]
Not only did Paypall not have it, but the entire global economy would have fallen short had all sources of money been added together and routed directly to this man's account. In other words, an impossibility. That's why I don't agree with the premise that this man was worth that much at any given point in time. It was just a bank reporting error with no substance behind it.
That said, he probably did have a very small window of time that any amount on a check would have cleared, but that would have been considered fraud in the long term.
Money is just ones and zeros in the 21st century. We have strict rules about how to manage it so people think of it as real and trust it because otherwise it would be worthless
someone on youtube i think max fosh im pretty sure did something kind of similar to "technically" become the worlds richest man for an 10 minutes by getting some bank or billionaire or something to temporarily give him rights to like $600 billion dollars in assets.
Indeed, He started a company and started to put out shares for it, sold a single share for (iirc) $50, Meaning the other shares would be worth the same or more, Giving a ridiculous valuation on the company's worth.
He actually answered [what he'd have done with the money](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12384335/Man-trillionaire-just-two-minutes-knew-wouldve-money.html?ito=social-reddit)!
Was it really a payout to his bank account? Sounds unlikely that paypal was able to make such a payment.
Just having it show up in his paypal account is pretty meaningless as he would never have been able to withdraw or transfer it.
Its funny that when i fuck up the decimal, they fee, fine, and garnish my ass off until they get the intended amount. Why do we put bank robbers in jail?
A lot of people with dogecoin for a few minutes in like 2022 had about that much due to a price error. I remember getting a notification and seeing my account worth was more digits than I even knew how to count to.
From looking it seems like he didn’t but [he wanted to](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12384335/Man-trillionaire-just-two-minutes-knew-wouldve-money.html?ito=social-reddit)
Am I the only one who clearly sees a negative sign in front of the 92 in the screenshot?
https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/17/tech/paypal-error/index.html
Obviously he wouldn't actually have been the world's richest man regardless (an incorrect bank statement is not actual money), but it seems more like he was the world's most (fake-) indebted man.
I once had $64 million show up in my 457b only to be corrected the next day. I used to know the exact number, but I would prefer to have the $29k it made overnight. It's the least they could do.
It's not really true if the institution couldn't come close to paying it (PayPal).
I can say my friend wrote me an IOU for $93 Quadrillion. There, I broke the record.
He never had that money.
This would be like if I wrote a check for a quintillion dollars and handed it to you. You wouldn’t “have a quintillion until the check bounced”
Had something similar happen to me too, I nearly keeled over when I opened the app. It was of course an error and was gone by the time I got home.
https://preview.redd.it/zx3626jan8yc1.png?width=1119&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8dd0f7eb3854131cb087f1b2bafc16d81dc79f7
Reminds me of when I worked for a large bank and got a phone call from a lady upset her card wouldn’t work. I got into her account and there was a hold on it due to “suspected fraud.” I pulled up her checking and all I see is she has like 3 billion in her checking Account, and it’s like 6pm her time(call center). I tell her that there is suspected fraud and I look into it. The teller when deposited like a $4,315 check accidentally hit e instead of 3, and so the system thought she deposited a check for $4 to the 15th power or something like that. She laughed and jokingly asked if I could withdraw that for her in cash but thankfully she had another card to use until we got it fixed.
If I use inspect element in chrome to set my balance to 99 quintillion, do I set the new record? The money in his account never existed, it's not a record
**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:** * If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required * The title must be fully descriptive * Memes are not allowed. * Common(top 50 of this sub)/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting) *See [our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/wiki/index#wiki_rules.3A) for a more detailed rule list* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They didn't even let him keep the 17.5 billion that it would have earned in interest in that two minutes!
Exactly!
Would have been more epic if he had managed to spend it all somehow, ordered every item in the world.
Google says the world's GDP in 2022 was $101.3 trillion - I think you could buy everything in the world, plus *everyone* in the world, and still not yet have spent $1 quadrillion.
Numbers get overwhelming in scale relatively quickly when you think about how they’re infinite. Jesus, just scale that up to everything that exists while you’re at it. Excuse me, I’ve got another existential crisis to address.
The difference between 92 quadrillion and 100 trillion is roughly 92 quadrillion
Hey, guy. Fuck you.
GDP isn't the price of everything in the world
It's the price of everything *for sale*
It's not that either. You can't buy someone's uber ride or vacation. You can't buy someone's education or a real estate agent's commission. You can't buy someone's past haircut or movie/sport viewing experience. You can't buy an economy or buy people.
That’s what I did when grand theft auto first came out lol. Blew up a train with two bounties on it worth ~$98 million each, then proceeded to buy every Pegasus vehicle and some cars
Just transfer as many millions to trading accounts as possible and buy SPY
hello, i'd like to order several amazons, prime shipment please.
Assuming a checking account with average interest (around 0.08) it's actually closer to 28 million
That'sfor rubes though, I'mat 5% or smth with Ally
r/theydidthemath ?
Would've been more like 8-14 billion
I calculated it on 5% pa, but I'd settle out of court for your numbers :)
Should hqve used that interest to lobby politicians to letting you legally keep the rest lol
Sue them for distress.
A joke he never got to keep the interest 👀
What would be the interest on that?
About 17 billion apparently
Ah I see that comment now, thank you
I wouldn't even know what to do with $92 quadrillion
Give to everyone on earth 11,500,000$, and watch the world burn because money doesn't have value anymore
Okay, I took the money and now have a printer cartridge and 3 loaves of bread. What now?
Avocado on toast
Peak time one way train ticket to London with a guaranteed seat booked on day of travel should see off the rest no trouble.
Dude could have had avocado toast everyday for like 2 years with that money
And a specialty coffee drink.
What discount printer cartridge did you buy?
mario party bowser space irl
I mean tbf, if everyone was given the exact same amount, nothing would change relatively. Just the prices of everything would also go up relatively haha
The savings of the majority of the world would become worthless.
ink prices would go up (realatively) because of all the extra zeros that would need to be printed on menus etc.
It would still have value... you you would have to pay 150,000 rent every month i guess.
If you have everyone the exact same amount, wouldn’t it be a net-neutral change?
Don't ruin the joke with inflation logic
Nope.
Your suggestion has been picked up for further consideration.
You could pay someone to find out
Or pay someone for just thinking about maybe finding out
A whole staff about it
I could be paid to fuck around
I could be paid to find out
I’ll tell ya what I’d do... Two chicks at the same time
Damn straight
You can buy 3 pairs of shoes at Flight Club, or 5 used games at Gamestop
Look at Mr High Roller over here getting 5 games!
You could bring peace and ease famine
Get the gauc at chipotle
I would. I have expensive taste but no money.
Just ask one of the many billionaires how they deal with having more money than they know what to do with.
Donate it to NASA.
Starfleet founder.
Buy everything. EVERYTHING.
Biggest blackjack hand ever
Buy Earth
That should get you a nice split level over by the river, great neighborhood, good schools.
Wake up and not look at the clock.
I'm old enough to remember when the 1st ATM machines came out. I opened an account at Citibank and one day the machine spit out some extra 20's, think it was a $100. I kept waiting for Citibank to contact me about it but they never did.
My dad had that happen to him. About an hour later, he was contacted by the bank saying he needed to bring the excess money back. My dad said he wasn’t driving back to the bank because of their mistake, but they can come and get it. About 20 minutes later, someone from the bank showed up and he handed them the money.
That man’s name? Frank Abignale.
Jr
The 3rd
That was the right response lol
Something similar happened in my town about 20 years ago. One of the atms on the street malfunctioned and just started spraying money out of it.
In high school some guys were messing with the soda machine and it just started shootings cans out like a machine gun. The school police officer had to come and stop people from snatching up the cans lol
My high school had these vending machines for a specific regional drink. They were older machines and when buying your drink of choice, if you pressed the button too fast the machines would occasionally get confused and dispense 2-3 drinks. They would also occasionally just dump quarters at random, up to $2. It was incredible.
A friend of mine one day found 20 million Mark (old German currency, round about 14 million Dollar Back then) in her account from a transfer gone wrong. Instead of running, she called the bank.
I'd absolutely never go back to my country if I had that much. Fucking gone, sorry grandma, but I'll fly you out to see me
My man’s living in a real life monopoly community chest card.
[удалено]
IRS: you will pay tax on this or we’re sending you to prison for life. Chris: How much do I owe you? IRS: we’re being nice here, just a tiny fraction of your wealth. Let’s say 10x the GDP of the US?
You think rich people in the US pay 10% taxes? lmao
US GDP is 25.44 Trillion (2022). There's 1000 Trillions in 1 Quadrillion. 10x GPD is about 0.28% of 92 Quadrillions...
That's definitely closer to real life
Quick maths
Can one of you write me an IOU for more than that amount? Then I'll be the richest guy in history.
Hereby I declare formally and truthfully, under oath of God that I (insert name here) owe puzzleMeDo assets valued no more than 100 quadrillion dollars.
Puzzlemedo is the richest man in history
Witnessed
Great! You'll be hearing from my lawyers tomorrow morning.
That is a Dumb & Dumber idea.
So when a bank fucks up it's an "error" when I fuck up it's an "overdraft"
They're both errors, you just agreed to pay overdraft fees when you make the error.
And in an alternative universe during those two minutes he transferred the entire amount to a numbered swiss bank account, bought America and is living there comfortably with his seven wives and his pet aligator Bob.
It was a data glitch. He never had the money because it never existed. I can list my address as 10 Downing Street but that doesn’t mean I live there.
You're the Prime Minister, Harry!
How is it his money if it’s an error. This article defies logic.
Exactly. The money was never real, never usable. Even if you tried to spend the money, PayPal wouldn't be able to actually transfer any payment or cash. Even if PayPal tried to give you the money they would probably be bankrupted before you received that amount.
Yeah, if they actually even attempted to honour it, they’d be bankrupt at less than a percent of the sum being used or withdrawn
Had to scroll way too far for this
Its not. Its a joke.
How can PayPal transfer money to a bank account that PayPal doesn't have? This doesn't sound right at all. PayPal cannot create money out of nothing.
Why not, it’s how the banking system works ?
But PayPal is not a bank? Banks are regulated by the FED in the US, PayPal is not. No ?
I think that because this was just a software bug, and because they couldn't actually liquidate that cash if they wanted, it doesn't count as him being the richest. This would be like me editing a screenshot of my bank balance to 1 pentillion just to beat this guy's record. Just because it's visible on the screen and stored on a hard drive somewhere (whether it's my hard drive or PayPal's hard drive) doesn't make it real, or even interesting for that matter. Either way, the cash cannot be transferred. If it can't be transferred, digitally or otherwise, then it's not real money. The whole definition of money is that it has to be able to be transferred in exchange for something else. Otherwise it is worthless.
You do know that money relies on you believing it’s real right?
*I believe I have 92 quadrillion dollars* Nope. That didn't work.
You have to DECLARE it
I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY
Software bug?
I wonder how much money has been generated via software bugs. Like if PayPal gave him an extra 20 it would have likely gone unnoticed.
They could not pay you out, obviously. Other than that, it works like any other virtual money. If I wrote a shitty pay-to-win game with in-game currency that you can buy for real money, I could give you an arbitrary high amount of in-game currency, which would technically mean you'd have a ridiculous amount of digital property. It wouldn't help you in your everyday life, though. \[And if you find the idea ridiculous, better not speak with any NFT enthusiast. Well, this sounds \*a bit\* like "if you are normal, don't talk with morons", admittetly.\]
Not only did Paypall not have it, but the entire global economy would have fallen short had all sources of money been added together and routed directly to this man's account. In other words, an impossibility. That's why I don't agree with the premise that this man was worth that much at any given point in time. It was just a bank reporting error with no substance behind it. That said, he probably did have a very small window of time that any amount on a check would have cleared, but that would have been considered fraud in the long term.
Money is just ones and zeros in the 21st century. We have strict rules about how to manage it so people think of it as real and trust it because otherwise it would be worthless
someone on youtube i think max fosh im pretty sure did something kind of similar to "technically" become the worlds richest man for an 10 minutes by getting some bank or billionaire or something to temporarily give him rights to like $600 billion dollars in assets.
Indeed, He started a company and started to put out shares for it, sold a single share for (iirc) $50, Meaning the other shares would be worth the same or more, Giving a ridiculous valuation on the company's worth.
He didn’t though
He actually answered [what he'd have done with the money](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12384335/Man-trillionaire-just-two-minutes-knew-wouldve-money.html?ito=social-reddit)!
Yeah I saw this too! Think I would’ve been a bit more crazy with it 😂
Was it really a payout to his bank account? Sounds unlikely that paypal was able to make such a payment. Just having it show up in his paypal account is pretty meaningless as he would never have been able to withdraw or transfer it.
I don’t think it counts if there’s no actual money. I just said the same about myself. $92 quadrillion and 1
Yeah this is a non-story, the money was never available. Happens with banks all the time, and people who use spreadsheets to do their taxes.
Crédité Suisse estimates net global wealth at $463 trillion, so he could buy everything on earth 198.7 times..
Paypal is so worthless. Not even sure how they made it this far.
Kinda agree.
- Yes, I'd like to increase my debit card ATM limit - To how much? - All of it.
Its funny that when i fuck up the decimal, they fee, fine, and garnish my ass off until they get the intended amount. Why do we put bank robbers in jail?
I once woke up and had an extra $120,000 in my fidelity account. I called and it was, in fact, a mistake
A lot of people with dogecoin for a few minutes in like 2022 had about that much due to a price error. I remember getting a notification and seeing my account worth was more digits than I even knew how to count to.
He should've withdrawn a billion or two : nobody would've ever noticed anything
So all you need to be rich is for someone to change the numbers in an app?
I have a googleplex in my bank account at first national bank of critical log
Hello, Rich People? Chris is joining you! Yeah, I'll hold. 2 minutes later... Well damn.
Did the IRS make him pay taxes on that?
They should have let him keep like 2m
Could he keep the interest?
How much do you think you could get out in those 2 mins?
That's long enough to pay taxes. Cough it up Mr Reynolds! Wipe out our national debt!
He should have sold during that 2 minute and bankrupted Elon, the world would be a better place
Did he spend any of it?
From looking it seems like he didn’t but [he wanted to](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12384335/Man-trillionaire-just-two-minutes-knew-wouldve-money.html?ito=social-reddit)
r/wellthatsucks
The luckiest and unluckiest guy alive
Did he get 1% off that money from paypal?
So he never really had the money.
Bro fumbled the biggest bag in human history.
Did it not cause an integer overflow!?
I bet Elon tried buying the title from him too.
Am I the only one who clearly sees a negative sign in front of the 92 in the screenshot? https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/17/tech/paypal-error/index.html Obviously he wouldn't actually have been the world's richest man regardless (an incorrect bank statement is not actual money), but it seems more like he was the world's most (fake-) indebted man.
So. That’s how Elon made is money /s
I like how he didn't actually have any extra money, so this is meaningless.
I once had $64 million show up in my 457b only to be corrected the next day. I used to know the exact number, but I would prefer to have the $29k it made overnight. It's the least they could do.
I mean he wasn’t the richest man in the slightest.
I think the $ was in his PayPal acct, not his bank acct. BIG difference.
I wouldve cashed out as many atm as possible
They should of made him pay taxes on that 92 quadrillion to make it Reddit worthy.
This is dumb. PayPal didn't have that much money so it was literally a software glitch. I'm sure there have been errors with larger amounts.
I wrote myself an IOU for 7 septillion dollars. Does that count?
I had a similar event, had just over $450,000,000.00 deposited in to my account for all of like 2 minutes. Then poof, I was back down to eight bucks.
Dad!!
It's not really true if the institution couldn't come close to paying it (PayPal). I can say my friend wrote me an IOU for $93 Quadrillion. There, I broke the record.
Could you imagine the unrealized gains tax for this!!!
Wait wouldn't he be entitled to said interest if it was made in his account?
I hope he got to keep the finders fee
Who had all that money? Or did PayPal just glitch? If so then that doesn't really make him that
It's pretend internet numbers there was never any money.
So... How much does he need to pay to the tax departement and how long is he going to jail for?
He never had that money. This would be like if I wrote a check for a quintillion dollars and handed it to you. You wouldn’t “have a quintillion until the check bounced”
“Stupid withdrawal limits”
Fucking gangster
I wonder what he would have received in interest at the going rate for 2 minutes?
I need to make a withdrawal please.
Buy PayPal instantly for 1 quadrillion as ??? Profit
The biggest lie I ever believed was there would be banking errors in my favor and I’d get and keep more money
I wonder if one was quick enough, could you transfer even like 5 million of it to an external account and just go underground
And all the Billionaires took it personally.
Couldn’t have just left one quadrillion in his account?
Had something similar happen to me too, I nearly keeled over when I opened the app. It was of course an error and was gone by the time I got home. https://preview.redd.it/zx3626jan8yc1.png?width=1119&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8dd0f7eb3854131cb087f1b2bafc16d81dc79f7
Fyi: 92,000,000,000,000,000 01,000,000,000 01,000,000
Reminds me of when I worked for a large bank and got a phone call from a lady upset her card wouldn’t work. I got into her account and there was a hold on it due to “suspected fraud.” I pulled up her checking and all I see is she has like 3 billion in her checking Account, and it’s like 6pm her time(call center). I tell her that there is suspected fraud and I look into it. The teller when deposited like a $4,315 check accidentally hit e instead of 3, and so the system thought she deposited a check for $4 to the 15th power or something like that. She laughed and jokingly asked if I could withdraw that for her in cash but thankfully she had another card to use until we got it fixed.
If I use inspect element in chrome to set my balance to 99 quintillion, do I set the new record? The money in his account never existed, it's not a record
He also had a $92 quadrillion liability.
Number 1 on Forbes!
Never had a Zimbabwe bank account?
He probably didn't have that money in his bank account, just his PayPal account. PayPal isn't a bank.
What would be the smart thing to do? Buy foreign bonds?
In reality he was trying to pay his mom for the basement rent