In 2005, Alex Tew sold one million pixels for one million dollars.

Alex Tew was a student at the University of Nottingham, studying business management. He needed a way to pay for his studies, so he did something almost too simple to take seriously: he divided a single webpage into one million pixels and started selling them for a dollar each.

The press found him. Advertisers started paying more than he'd asked. The project became one of the most talked-about experiments in the early commercial web.

In December 2005, after the page's success, he dropped out of the business management program. He went on to co-found Calm — now the #1 app for sleep, meditation and relaxation. He's also a fellow Brit. Perry feels like he's picking up the pixelated flag, and carrying on Alex's genius idea now it's come of age.

Why this page exists

The Billion Dollar Homepage is a modern reworking of that idea. The canvas is the same shape — one million pixels — but the mechanism is different. Anyone can take your spot by paying 5% more. Your previous spend stays credited. Outbid is the mechanic instead of a once-in-a-lifetime auction.

The original proved the page itself can be the product. We're testing whether the same idea holds up twenty one years later, on a different internet, under different rules.