What a billion burgers have to do with online learning

Burgernomics are a thing.

The most popular burger stats thingy is probably The Big Mac Index, an informal way of measuring the purchasing power of a country, based on what a Big Mac costs.

For example, as of 2018, a Big Mac costs around $5 in Canada, $7 in Switzerland, and only $2 in Russia. It shows you how far your bucks can stretch when you visit a country. 💵💴💶💷💸

Then there’s the famous McDonalds billboard nudge.  

If you’ve ever done our Behavioural Economics Course (which is a bestseller, by the way), you’ll know all about how nudges can change consumer behaviour, and drive sales.

Back in 1955, when Ray Kroc bought his first Mickey Dees franchise in Illinois, he created their first nudge when he added ‘Have sold over 1 Million’ to their sign.

And soon this became their thing.

By 1960, the signs read 400 million.

And by 1990 they were up to 80 billion.

Finally in 1994 when they got to over 100 billion, they decided to stop counting.

It was getting a little redundant. Surely if there was anyone left on the planet who hadn’t tried one yet, by the time they’d sold 80 billion, were they really hanging out, waiting to see if McD made it to the 100 billionth sale before picking one up?

And they probably wanted to save on sign-making costs.

After all, by 2013 they were selling more than 75 burgers every second of every minute, of every hour, of every day of the year.

So they instructed all franchise operators to just put, "BILLIONS AND BILLIONS SERVED" and the signs have stayed that way ever since.

But no worries, if you’re nostalgic, or an accountant and you miss their tally, this website is dedicated to predicting current sales every second. Some corners of the internet must be really bored. 

So what does this have to do with 42 Courses, you might be wondering?

Well, last week, we welcomed our 10,000th user. A truly outstanding chap from Portugal 🇵🇹, who we are pleased to report, is already exponentially smarter.

So, we may not have served billions yet, but @McDonalds, watch this space, we’re coming for you.