SortStack #2859 — 2034-04-07

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A single Powerball lottery ticket $2.00

   The odds of hitting the jackpot are about 1 in 292 million — you are far likelier to be struck by lightning multiple times in your life.

2. An iPhone Pro at launch $999

   The components inside an iPhone cost Apple roughly half the sticker price — the rest covers R&D, software, marketing, and famously healthy margins.

3. Thirty seconds of advertising time during the Super Bowl $8M

   In 1967, a Super Bowl ad cost about $42,000. Brands now spend millions more on celebrity talent and production than on the airtime itself.

4. The Mona Lisa's insurance valuation for its world tour in the Sixties $100M

   It was the highest insurance valuation in history at the time — but the Louvre skipped the premium and spent the money on security instead.

5. Andy Warhol's 'Shot Sage Blue Marilyn' silkscreen $195M

   The series got its name when a performance artist walked into Warhol's studio in 1964 and shot a stack of Marilyn canvases with a revolver.

6. Mojang, the maker of Minecraft, when Microsoft bought it $2.5B

   Creator Markus 'Notch' Persson sold partly due to burnout, tweeting that he didn't want the responsibility — Minecraft went on to become the best-selling game ever.

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