Digits: Submarines, songs, and other news numbers

1) Ray Dalio, James Cameron, and the head of a submarine company walk into a bar… Sounds like the set up for a joke but it’s not. Triton Submarines, which sells subs priced anywhere between $2.5m and $40m, is now partly owned by Dalio and Cameron.

2) Here’s a stat that may surprise you: New research found that 29% of Americans work for a parent’s employer before turning 30, which is estimated to increase one’s initial earnings by 19%.

3) You’ve heard of MIT, but you may not have heard of New York’s Baruch College, a relatively affordable public university where Masters in Financial Engineering grads see an average starting salary of ~$170k, roughly a fifth higher than those at MIT.

4) Songs sure are getting shorter. A 2018 study found that, since 2000, Billboard Hot 100 songs have trended down from ~4:10 minutes to 3:30. In 2021, the top 50 tracks on Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 averaged 3:07. Thanks, TikTok.

5) Internet traffic measurement site Similarweb found that traffic to Twitter’s desktop ad manager was down ~74% YoY in October, 85% in November, and so low in December that it has stopped measuring it.