SortStack #2992 — 2034-08-18

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A Dyson Airwrap hair styler $600

   Dyson spent about 100 million pounds developing the Airwrap, using the same tiny high-speed motor technology as its vacuums.

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. A Tesla Powerwall home battery, installed $9.3K

   A Powerwall stores about enough electricity to run a typical US home for half a day to a day — many owners buy them less for savings than for blackout insurance.

4. The cheapest new car sold in America, a Nissan Versa $17K

   The sub-$20,000 new car is nearly extinct in the US — in 2019 there were over a dozen models under that line; now essentially one remains.

5. 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.

6. Activision Blizzard, when Microsoft bought it $68.7B

   The biggest gaming acquisition ever took nearly two years to close as regulators on three continents scrutinized it — the UK initially blocked it outright.

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