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Hey Challenge fans, we're sure most of you saw our original challenge episode where we
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tried to come up with ways of spending $1 billion dollars in real life in just one day.
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Well, today we're putting it up to your favorite lab rat and challenging him to find realistic
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ways of spending $1 billion in 24 hours- but because it's Covid quarantine season, he can't
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leave the house!
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So, can you really spend a cool $1 billion online in 24 hours?
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Let's find out!
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Alright, I bet all of you out there in youtubeland are about as sick and tired of being stuck
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at home as I am.
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Well, other than going stir crazy I happened to be a statistic and actually got infected,
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but thankfully it was mild and cleared up in a few weeks.
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Turns out the girlfriend is one of the lucky ones, and was asymptomatic, but just in case
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we made sure to bunker up at our place like it was a zombie apocalypse survival challenge.
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I don't know which of the two- the girlfriend or our dog- has suffered the worst from this
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lockdown.
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She loves to be active, and this lockdown has her going absolutely stir crazy.
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Our poor dog is used to going to agility training and to the dog park to hang out with other
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pups, and the best we've been able to do with him is play fetch in the house.
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The other day I caught both of them staring out the window and I swear they had tears
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in their eyes.
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You probably noticed we've been on a challenge break given the circumstances and my health,
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so it's kind of nice to actually be able to do another challenge- even if it's just online.
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Spend a billion dollars over the internet, without ever leaving home.
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That's a lot of money, and the rules of the challenge are going to make it rather difficult.
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First, there's no just giving it away to charity, I have to find real things to spend the money
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on.
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Second, the entire purchasing process has to be done electronically.
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The buying and receipt process of whatever I would buy all has to be possible remotely,
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never requiring a face-to-face meeting or exchange.
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So, let's start.
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Ok, right off the bat I thought about real estate, because it's the most expensive thing
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you can possibly buy and I need to eat up this massive budget as quickly as I can.
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After all, I need to actually be able to buy everything I plan on acquiring all online,
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far more difficult than in person.
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Also, there's a sweet bonus from The Infographics Show on the line for me if I can hit the billion
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dollar mark in a realistic way- yep, the show's officially turning these challenges into a
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messed up game show.
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So I turned to Dubai, knowing that they have private islands for sale there and private
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islands in one of the world's most expensive places can't be cheap.
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I had to make sure that I could actually complete a transaction fully remotely, so I did what
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any normal person would do- I reached out to them directly and pretended I wanted to
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buy an island.
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Turns out, it's pretty damn easy.
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I got a hold of the real estate agency by email first, and they responded very quickly
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and set up a time to call.
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(Use photo 1 in attachments to card)
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Now I couldn't just pretend to be the buyer directly, because no insanely rich person
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handles such mundane details as buying islands themselves.
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So I had the girlfriend pretend to be my assistant, which worked really well because she's a very
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gifted actress.
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Within two hours and after just three phone calls back and forth between us and the real
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estate office in Dubai, we had an island worth $455 million lined up and ready for purchase.
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Now the payment process would take a few days because as we were told, it would have to
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be done via bank wire transfer and officials in both the US and Dubai would have to inspect
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it.
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You can't just move around such massive quantities of money without the government taking a peek
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to make sure everything's legit.
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Then there would have to be reams of paperwork to be signed, and some government forms from
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Dubai- but all of it I was assured could be done quickly and completely over the internet,
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by phone, or if need be- by fax.
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Boom, just like that I owned an island.
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Well, I mean not really, but either way almost halfway through this challenge with just one
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purchase.
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$545 million to go.
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I headed over to Ebay because I figured that place was full of enough crap that there were
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bound to be plenty of things to help me reach my billion dollar budget.
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I was definitely not disappointed.
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I went to automobiles first, figuring that cars would probably be the most expensive
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things there.
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The clock was winding down, so I had to spend my money economically, achieving a very high
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dollar to hours ratio, so I ignored anything under a million, and honestly, the cars section
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kind of disappointed me.
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Sure, there were Bugattis and McLarens P1s for sale, but even after buying enough cars
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for myself and all my extended family and exhausting every single car over a million
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that I could find, it all still only came up to $43 million.
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Still, that's a total of $498 million, and only $502 million left to go.
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I turned to collectibles and I found some real gems there, though nothing quite as pricey
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as I imagined.
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Still, I snagged a sweet original negative from the Hiroshima atomic bombing for 2 million,
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and I have to admit it was fascinating to make that find.
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(use photo labeled 2)
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I also found a WWII Japanese officer's sword and a top secret British map of the front
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lines, both for over a million.
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What really blew my mind though was a piece of a letter written by the Prophet Muhammad,
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going for $1.2 million.
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(use photo 3).
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I wondered about the authenticity but it came with a certificate of authenticity and the
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seller had over 98% positive feedback- so, you know, 'probably' legit.
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Alright, I racked up a total bill of $38 million in collectible photographs, maps, and other
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similar antiques- though it sort of became a bit of rabbit hole for me and I spend a
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good hour and a half looking through all the postings...
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most of that time was while the girlfriend was on the phone with real estate agents in
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Dubai of course.
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Still, it wasn't a very efficient use of my time, I wasn't spending enough money per hour
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and needed to step it up a notch.
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$536 million spent, $464 million to go.
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I turned to antiques now, and was blown away by a 21 million dollar cabinet.
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Yeah, you heard that right, a cabinet worth 21 million... at least to someone anyways.
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(use photo 4).
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Apparently the cabinet was gifted by Queen Victoria to various British nobles, and you
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know those Brits- despite living in a democracy they are confusingly still crazy about royals.
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Like a hundred years ago these guys were literally stomping on peasant's necks, and today they're
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getting turned into celebrities...
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I just don't understand.
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Anyways, I thought it was funny when I found a life-sized carving of Sitting Bull's head
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for sale for 8.5 million (use photo 5).
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It was attributed to an early American folk artist, but the seller admits that it hadn't
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been authenticated.
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That takes some balls to sell an item you haven't even authenticated yet and ask for
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$8.5 million, so I put it on the list.
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Top it all off with some random ancient chinese porcelain, more British royal memorabilia,
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and other odds and ends and my antique shopping spree came out to a cool $74 million, putting
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a serious dent in my budget and making for a very efficient millions-per-hour spending
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rate.
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New total: $610 million, $390 to go.
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Now, I figured art was a sure-fire way to spend some big bucks, and let me tell you
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I wasn't disappointed here.
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I found some jackson pollock original paintings all for at least $10 million, along with two
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paintings of... well, streaks, also going for $10 million.
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(use photo 6).
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Listen, I get it, I'm an artist myself, but if you're spending $10 million for a streak
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of paint on white canvas... you really need to check yourself before you rickety-wreck
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yourself, because you just got got.
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Still, it was pricey, so into the shopping bag it went.
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All in all after spending obscene amounts on modern art, my bill came to $98 million.
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Interestingly though I didn't find any paintings over 10 million, making me wonder if there's
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some limit Ebay is willing to let dumb people spend on their site.
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New total: $708 million, with $292 to go.
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By now I'd spent six hours shopping, and it was time for lunch so I ordered Grubhub sushi
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for the girlfriend and I.
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Total: $58.30, but I picked up that tab myself.
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This was going much better than I had hoped for to be honest, mostly because as I mentioned-
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dumb people are paying obscene amounts of money for dumb art.
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I figured that after all this coronavirus lockdown crap, me and the girlfriend deserved
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a vacation, so I looked for ways to finance a getaway with our remaining millions.
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I found what's billed as the world's most expensive hotel room, which is on a private
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submarine down in the Caribbean called The Lover's Deep.
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Price tag: $292,000 a night, so with air fare and a five night get away, that came out to
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$1.5 million.
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I threw in some fun activities like swimming with sharks, luxury yacht rentals- plus crew
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of course- and a few other odds and ends and managed to spend $3.2 million for a five day
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trip.
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Thing is, this was an incredibly inefficient use of my time, because it took almost two
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hours to even find the contact info for The Lovers Deep, because as I found out- at least
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as of this writing- it's not a thing you can just google.
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I had to have the girlfriend call down to several places at St. Lucia itself to find
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anyone who had contact info for the company that rents out the submarine, once again with
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her posing as my very sexy personal assistant.
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Turns out this sub is kind of one of those 'unique' experiences that only the ultra wealthy
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are supposed to know about, and I feel like if I include the contact info in this video
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someone might come after me.
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Ok, new total: $711.2 million.
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Definitely not a good use of my time.
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Alright, regular business hours for American businesses were coming to a close soon, so
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I pulled out all the stops for this next expense.
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I headed over to Space Adventures' website and got a public relations phone number to
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call.
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After a half hour of back and forths, they quoted me that for an upcoming circumlunar
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mission, the cost would be $117 million per person.
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The trip is supposed to span less than a week, and consists of two passengers with one professional
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Russian Cosmonaut.
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Your spacecraft will swing around the far side of the moon, without entering into orbit,
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and return to earth, bringing you as low as 100 meters from the lunar surface.
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Now, of all the things I spent fake money on, this was without a doubt the thing that
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had me most excited.
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I love space.
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Let me rephrase that, I (bleep) love space, and the thought of getting within 100 meters
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of the moon made me so excited that I got sad when I realized I wouldn't actually be
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going.
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Also, I would never get the opportunity to make the ultimate terrible joke, by getting
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into space with the girlfriend, turning to her, and saying, “You know, I think you're
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out of this world.”
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So two dreams crushed in one blow, what a cruel life.
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Still, my new total was $945.2 million, with $54.8 to go- except not, because Space Adventures
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also quoted a single seat to the ISS for $55 million!
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And just like that, boom, billion dollars spent.
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Sure I went over budget, but I guess I could just cut back on some of the dumb art I bought,
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and yeah, it makes me a little sad that I'd have to leave the girlfriend behind while
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I went to the ISS, but as she put it- “Going to the ISS seems dumb, I bet it smells up
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there.
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But the moon is romantic!”
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Mission accomplished, and it only took less than twelve hours- granted I couldn't have
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done it without the girlfriend pretending to be my personal assistant to various real
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estate and luxury resort offices, so half the credit goes to her.
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Now payment for some of these things would take a few days to sort out, but I was assured
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that none of it would need to be done in person, and the bank could handle all wire transfers
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electronically.
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So, if you've ever wondered if you could really spend a billion dollars online in one day-
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the answer is yes.
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Got challenge fever and can't wait for new ones to start again?
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Check out the classic, Eating Only What I Catch For 72 Hours.
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Or watch this other video instead!