1QUESTION 1 OF 3
Answer & explanation
The official answer, with Fermi’s reasoning step by step.
Answer & explanation
Official answer
2,100,000
people
How to estimate it
Fermi’s official “Napkin math”
Start with the number of McDonald's restaurants, about 40,000 around the world. How many people work at one, counting every shift and the managers? Maybe 50.
- McDonald's restaurants
- 40,000
- Workers per restaurant
- × 50
- 40,000 × 50
- ≈ 2,000,000
Rounded assumptions may give a slightly different estimate. The official answer above is the game’s reference value.
Source calculation & reference
- People working in franchised McDonald's restaurants (FY2025 10-K)
- over 2,000,000
- McDonald's own employees, restaurants plus offices (FY2025 10-K)
- + over 150,000
- Restaurant workers, leaving out corporate staff, rounded
- ≈ 2,100,000
Reference cited by Fermi: McDonald's 2025 annual report (10-K): over 2 million in franchised restaurants plus 150,000 staff
How close was your guess?
Your comparison will appear here.
Compare by ratio: divide the larger number by the smaller one. The closer to 1×, the better.