What $10.9 Billion Will Buy

A particular Digg caught my eye today -- "Exxon posts a $10.9 Billion Profit." For myself, and other mere mortals, $10.9B is just plain hard to even fathom. So, I thought I would do some of the fun math that I have seen others do that kind of puts it all in perspective.

Here is a break-down of what exactly $10.9 Billion means:

• It's slightly more than the 2007 Gross Domestic Product of Japan, Germany and China...... Combined!!
• It could buy 2.7 exabytes of enterprise-grade storage (roughly -- at somewhere around $4/GB). This is approximately .002% of the 1.7 zettabytes that IDC forecasts we'll be generating in 2011.
• Instead of building data centers for the company, you could just buy Equinix, Level 3, and Digital Realty Trust. (based on Market Cap)
  
• $10.9B is more than 4x the 2007 "net investments in real estate" made by Digital Realty Trust.
• It's more than 3x the total amount Cisco spent in acquisitions in 2007.
  
• It's more than 4x what Google spent on data centers in 2007.
• It's only 6% of the Google Market Cap.
• Google Gross Profit is catching up -- at $9.9B
• It would buy around 83,846 shares of Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock