Thirty minutes — it's not really a significant amount of time.
You could fit in a quick workout, take a lunch break from work — or lose $14 billion.
Wait, what was that last one? Chinese businessman Li Hejun did just that. (Video via CCTV)
Li was one of China's richest men. Although he lost a considerable amount of dough, he's still loaded. (Video via CNBC)
Li is the founder of renewable energy company Hanergy Thin Film Power. Within a half hour Wednesday, the company's stocks plunged 47 percent before being suspended. (Video via Bloomberg)
That's a lot of money lost. At first, what caused the massive decline was a mystery, but many are now pointing to Li missing the company's annual shareholders meeting.
Instead, The Wall Street Journal reports, Li was "attending the opening ceremony of the company’s clean-energy exhibition center in Beijing."
Still, the crash is about as mysterious as the company's rise in shares in the first place. Fortune notes, "Transparency about the company’s business practices is limited by the fact that most of its sales go to a single company — its parent, the privately-held Hanergy Group." (Video via CNBC)
And Li's company was truly a big deal. Forbes puts it in perspective:
"The rise in Hanergy’s stock made it bigger than Tesla, meaning it was both the biggest solar company in the world and the world's biggest clean energy company."
Word to the wise: Don't miss meetings.
