$5 Trillion? $25 Trillion? Gadzillion?

Even to the wealthiest among us, $5 trillion seems a lot of money. It is, indeed, a lot of money. But, much more importantly, it seems like a lot of money. Unlike the less endowed, who like to fake-boast that after a particular number, 'it all looks the same', the super-rich can, indeed, distinguish between $5 trillion and, say, $10 trillion, since they have to deal with, if not these big sums, incremental amounts of them. But with the vast majority of non-billionaires conflating $5 trillion with $10 trillion, royal HNIesses wield a very effective psychological tool: that of mentioning any huge sum of money without actually having to be numerically accurate.

So, if an industrialist - which still sounds richer than 'entrepreneur' - says that his conglomerate's target is to have an operating income of $15 billion by 2025, nothing stops him or her from telling hoi polloi that the target set for 2030 is $25 billion. Or, for that matter, $25 trillion. Very few folks, whose relation with zeros is nebulous, will check the claim's feasibility, especially when running into figures that are abstract to them. And - and here's the beauty of this monetary mirage - the sky's the limit. Or, rather, it isn't. To leave a lasting impression of being impressed, you could talk up money to levels of $10 gadzillion and none will be wiser, and all will be wowed.