SortStack #577 — 2028-01-07

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A pack of instant ramen noodles $0.40

   In a Japanese poll, instant ramen was voted the country's greatest invention of the twentieth century — beating karaoke and the Walkman.

2. A top-spec Tesla Cybertruck $100K

   At its 2019 unveiling, the 'unbreakable' armored glass windows cracked twice on stage when hit with a metal ball — Tesla's stock dipped the next day.

3. A Rolls-Royce Phantom, before options $517K

   Each Phantom's 'Starlight Headliner' is hand-threaded with hundreds of fiber-optic stars — buyers can order the exact night sky from a date of their choosing.

4. Alaska, as the United States paid Russia for it $7.2M

   The 1867 nominal price worked out to about two cents per acre. Critics called it 'Seward's Folly' — then gold and oil turned it into history's great bargain.

5. Instagram, when Facebook bought it $1B

   In 2012 Instagram had 13 employees and zero revenue. The price was widely mocked as insane — it may be the best acquisition in tech history.

6. WhatsApp, when Facebook bought it $19B

   At the 2014 acquisition, WhatsApp had about 55 employees serving 450 million users — a price of roughly $350 million per employee.

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